Fahrenheit 451 - Part Three

Part Three: Burning Bright

What hint does Captain Beatty say he sent to Montag that he must not have picked up on?
Beatty sent the Mechanical Hound to Montag's house as a hint that he was watching him.

What does Mildred have in her hand when she walks out of the house?
She has her suitcase in her hand and she gets into a taxi and drives off.

What does Montag suspect Mildred of doing?
He suspects that she called the fire department.

What does Beatty say is the real beauty of fire?
He says that fire erases all worries and responsibilities.

Instead of using kerosene, Captain Beatty wants Montag to use what to burn down his house?














He wants him to use the flamethrower like the one above. This is much more personal, because Montag has to go from room to room burning each item in turn rather than destroying the house all at once with kerosene.

How does Montag figure the books got back into the house?
He thinks Mildred must have found them in the garden and put them back in the house.

What does Beatty say to Montag as he is finishing burning the house?
He tells him that he is under arrest.

Who called in the alarm?
Mildred's friends called in an alarm, but Beatty says they ignored it. Then Mildred called in and they decided to act on that one.

What did Beatty do to Montag?
Beatty started talking to Montag, who wasn't responding because he was listening to Faber speaking to him via the "green bullet", so Beatty hit him on the head.

What happened to the “green bullet” radio that Faber gave to Montag?
When Beatty hit Montag, it flew out of his ear and landed on the ground. Beatty picked it up and listened to it and he could hear Faber speaking to Montag.

What does Beatty say he will do with the radio?
He said he would use it to track down Faber.

What did Montag do to Beatty?
Beatty goads Montag and insults him. Eventually, it is too much for Montag and he pulls the trigger and fires the flamethrower at Beatty, killing him.

What was the reaction of the other two firemen?
They don't react at all. They are absolutely stunned by what has just happened. Montag thumps them over the head with the flamethrower and knocks them unconscious.

Explain Montag’s dealing with the Hound.
The hound leaps at Montag and he fires the flamethrower at it. The flames destroy the robot, but it still manages to stab him slightly with its needle, injecting some poison into his leg.

What happens to Montag as he leaving the Hound?
He steps back from the Hound, but he steps onto the road. Suddenly, a car races by, hitting him on the knee and knocking him down.

Why was Montag having a hard time getting away?
With the poison in his leg and the injury caused by the car, his leg is very painful. He can't walk properly on it.

What does Montag find in his old garden?
He finds some books that Mildred must not have noticed.

Montag thinks to himself that Captain Beatty probably wanted to do what?
Montag becomes convinced that Beatty wanted to die. He feels that Beatty pushed and bullied him so hard that he wanted Montag to kill him.

Why is Montag having a difficult time getting up?
His leg still hurts, but also he is filled with emotion about what he has done. Eventually, he talks to himself and manages to move.

What does Montag hear in the Seashell?
Montag puts the regular seashell in his ear and hears the police report about himself. The police have issued an alert to everyone to look out for him.

To where does Montag realize he is running?
Montag realizes that he is unconsciously running towards Faber's house.

Why was Montag having such a difficult time getting across the street?
The street that he is trying to cross is 10 lanes wide, and as he is trying to cross, some teenagers in a car are trying to run him down. Again, we see the heartless, uncaring people that teenagers have become. They don't even know who Montag is; they just want to hit him for fun.

After Montag makes it across the street, from whom does he hide?
He hides from the teenagers in the car. They missed him the first time, and have come back to try to hit him again. Once they realize he is gone, they drive off. Montag wonders if they are the people who killed Clarisse.

What does Montag do to the Black family?
Black is one of the other firemen. To start carrying out his plan that he discussed with Faber, Montag sneaks into Black's house and plants one of the books he carried from his own garden. Then he goes outside and calls in the alarm. Once he hears the Salamander coming, he leaves.

What does Faber say there are a lot of along the railroad tracks?
A lot of "Harvard degrees." Faber means that there are a lot of educated people living outside the city in the countryside. They have been driven there because they were hunted by the police, or just to escape life in the city where so many things are censored.

Where does Faber say he is going? Why is he going there?
Faber says he is going to take the bus to St Louis to visit a retired printer that he knows there. He is going to start on their plan of printing books to plant them in firemen's houses.

What has been brought from a different district to track down Montag?
Another Mechanical Hound.

Why does Montag tell Faber to burn the bed spread and the chair?
The Hound tracks people by scent, so he tells Faber to burn them to destroy his scent. He is worried that the Hound will attack Faber and then continue after him.

Why doesn’t Faber give Montag another “green bullet”?
Because he doesn't have another one.

What does Montag watch on the parlor walls?
Montag watches the hound chasing him. He is fascinated by the chase but finally tears himself away and heads to the river.

What do the police suggest everyone do at the same time?
They ask everyone to stand up and look out their windows to try to spot Montag. Montag is amazed that the police haven't tried this idea before. In this world, people are so conditioned to obeying authority, that they all do as they are told. Would this work in our society today?

What did Montag do when he got to the river?
He changed into Faber's old clothes and threw his own clothes into the river to try to disguise his scent and hide himself from the hound.

Because the __________ wouldn’t stop burning, Montag would.
Sun. Montag thinks a lot as he drifts down the river. He thinks about the sun and the way that it rises ad sets every day. The days of our lives disappear and it's as if they are eaten up by the sun as it rises and sets. He realises that if the firemen burn things and the sun burns time, then that means everything is gone. He decides then that he will never burn things again.

What does Montag think of when he smells the hay?
He is reminded of an idyllic trip to the countryside when he was a boy.

What did Montag think was looking at him?
He thought it was the Hound.

What was it that was looking at him?
Montag is still paranoid and terrified of being caught by the Hound, but it's only a deer which feels just as scared as him and runs away. The deer is a good contrast to the Hound - one of them artificial and destructive, the other natural and gentle.

What did Montag hit with his foot?
He wanders through the woods and finally hits the railroad.

What was the single fact that Montag could not prove?
He is convinced Clarisse has been there, although he has no evidence for it.

What does Montag see?
He sees a fire through the trees, but this is a very different kind of fire than he is used to. It is warming, and welcoming. Montag has only ever seen fire as destructive.

What do the men offer Montag?
When he sits down, they offer him some coffee in a collapsible tin cup.

What is the name of the man that is talking to Montag?
His name is Granger.

What is the colorless fluid in the small bottle supposed to do?
It is a chemical that will quickly change his scent so that the hound can't track him.

Why is the chase still going on if they have lost Montag?
In this world, the authorities control society tightly. If people thought they were stupid or imcompetent, they wouldn't be able to control the public so well. Once they have started the chase, they must appear to catch him or it would send the message to everyone that the police aren't infallible, so they continue the chase until they catch "Montag".

What does Montag see in the portable viewer?
He watches the chase being filmed from a police helicopter. This is exactly like we see on TV nowadays. Look at this example.

How was it possible that not even Montag’s friends would recognize that the man they caught wasn’t him?
When the police finally caught someone, they made sure that the cameras did not focus on the person's face so that people would not know that it was not Montag.

Where is Montag keeping the Book of Ecclesiastes?
He is keeping it in his head. He tells Granger that he doesn't think he can remember it all, but Granger says that they have developed techniques to help him remember.

What does Granger think their job is?
Granger says that all the people in the woods are just receptacles for the knowledge in the books. They are like human libraries and they just carry the knowledge until it is needed again.

How does Montag feel about Mildred still being in the city?
He feels sad. It is interesting that Montag still has some feelings for Mildred.

What does Montag see happening in the city?
Bombers fly over the city and drop at least one enormous nuclear bomb on the city, destroying it completely. The city is literally reduced to dust.

What other book does Montag realize he has remembered?

What does Granger compare man to?

What kind of factory does Granger say they are going to build?