Discussion Questions for seventh reading (pages 113-130) of Fahrenheit 451
What allusion to ancient mythology does Beatty make regarding Guy? (113)
Daedalus and Icarus; trapped on an island, they made wings of feathers held together by
wax to fly away and escape, but Icarus flew too near to the sun and the wax melted and
he fell to his death.
What does Beatty reveal to Guy about the Mechanical Hound that had been sniffing
around Guy’s house earlier? (113)
He had sent it as a warning.
What does Beatty cruelly say to Guy about Clarisse McClellan? (113-114)
Beatty calls her an idiot and says that Guy was taken in by her routine; he dismisses what
she had to say as trash, and asks what good she ever did anyone with that stuff.
What does Guy reply? (114)
“She saw everything. She didn’t do anything to anyone. She just let them alone.”
What does Beatty say after Guy has stated that Clarisse never did anything to anyone and
just let them alone? (114)
“Alone, hell! She chewed around you, didn’t she? One of those damned do-gooders with
their shocked, holier-than-thou silences, their one talent making others feel guilty. God
damn you, they rise like the midnight sun to sweat you in your bed!”
Who do we find out had called in the alarm? (114)
Mildred.
When Faber asks Guy what’s happening via the Seashell Radio earpiece, what does Guy
say? (115)
“This is happening to me.”
How does Beatty respond to Guy’s having said this? (115)
“What a dreadful surprise. For everyone nowadays knows, absolutely is certain, that
nothing will ever happen to me. Others die, I go on. There are no consequences and no
responsibilities. Except that there are. But let’s not talk about them, eh? By the time the
consequences catch up with you, it’s too late, isn’t it, Montag?”
What does Beatty say about fire as he stares at the fire made by his personal lighter?
(115)
“What is it about fire that’s so lovely? No matter what age we are, what draws us to it?
It’s perpetual motion; the thing man wanted to invent but never did. Or almost perpetual
motion. If you let it go on, it’d burn our lifetimes out. What is fire? It’s a mystery … Its
real beauty is that it destroys responsibility and consequences. A problem gets too
burdensome, then into the furnace with it. Now, Montag, you’re a burden. And fire will
lift you off my shoulders, clean, quick, sure; nothing to rot later. Antibiotic, aesthetic,
practical.”
Guy looks into his house and sees the firemen piling up his previously hidden books to
prepare them to be burned. Since Guy had hidden them in the bushes in the yard, he
realizes what about how the books got back into the house for the firemen to find them?
(115-116)
Mildred must have watched him hide the books and brought them back in.
What does Beatty inform Guy about how this job will be done, and by whom? (116)
He wants Guy to do this job himself, without kerosene, but rather piecework, using a
flame thrower.
When Faber asks Guy via the earpiece if he can run away, Guy responds by saying “No!
The Hound! Because of the Hound!” loudly enough that Beatty hears him. What does
Beatty think when he hears Guy say this, and what does he say to Guy? (116)
Beatty thinks it was meant for him, and says, “Yes, the Hound’s somewhere about the
neighborhood, so don’t try anything.”
How does Guy feel as he burns his own house down with the flamethrower? (116-117)
He is glad to be destroying this place that reminds him of his miserable marriage and
empty life.
How does Guy probably feel in particular as he burns the three television-walls? (117)
He thinks of the TV-walls as monsters so he takes particular satisfaction in destroying
them.
Since Guy is using the flamethrower and not just kerosene and matches, what happens to
the “fireproof” plastic sheath on all the walls etc. of his house? (117)
He cuts open the fireproof plastic sheath on everything and the house truly burns.
What question does Guy ask Beatty as his collapsed house smolders? (117)
“Was it my wife turned in the alarm?”
What does Beatty tell Guy about who turned him in, and when? (117-118)
Mildred had turned him in, but her friends (Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. Bowles) had turned him
in earlier that night anyway, and he had let that one slide.
What does Beatty say to Guy about the effect that a few lines of poetic verse can have on
a man? (118)
“Give a man a few lines of verse and he thinks he’s Lord of all Creation. You think you
can walk on water with your books.”
What question does Beatty ask Guy? (118)
“Montag, you idiot, Montag, you damn fool; why did you really do it?”
What is Faber saying to Guy through the earpiece? (118)
“Montag, get out of there!”
When Beatty notices that Guy isn’t responding to him, what does Beatty do, and with
what result? (118)
Beatty strikes him a blow on the head that sends him reeling and causes the earpiece
radio to fall out of his ear and onto the ground. Beatty then snatches it up.
When Beatty has hit Guy on the head and caused the radio earpiece to fall out of Guy’s
ear and on to the ground, and Beatty has picked it up and listened to it, what does Beatty
threaten to do next? (118)
“We’ll trace this and drop in on your friend.”
How does Guy respond? (119)
Guy cries “No!” and points the flame thrower at Beatty and turns off its safety catch.
How does Beatty react when Guy threatens to burn him with the flamethrower? (119)
He dares him to say a speech quoting literature, then quotes Shakespeare himself. Then
he dares him to pull the trigger. He then tells Guy to hand over the flame thrower.
How does Bradbury describe the death of Beatty? (119)
“And then he was a shrieking blaze, a jumping, sprawling gibbering manikin, no longer
human or known, all writhing flame on the lawn as Montag shot one continuous pulse of
liquid fire on him. There was a hiss like a great mouthful of spittle banging a red-hot stove, a
bubbling and frothing as if salt had been poured over a monstrous black snail to cause a
terrible liquefaction and a boiling over of yellow foam … Beatty flopped over and over and
over, and at last twisted in on himself like a charred wax doll and lay silent.”
What does Guy do to the other two firemen who are there? (120)
He orders them to turn around and then beats their heads until they are unconscious.
What shows up to take down Guy? (120)
The Mechanical Hound.
What does the Mechanical Hound manage to do to Guy and what does Guy manage to do
to it? (120)
The Mechanical Hound manages to stab Guy in the leg with his procaine needle; Guy
manages to destroy the Mechanical Hound with the flamethrower.
What physical effect does the Hound’s poison (procaine) that it injected into Guy’s leg
have on him? (120-121)
It puts his leg to sleep; when he tries to walk on that leg it feels like a chunk of burnt pine
log, and when he puts his weight on it this causes needles of pain to shoot through the
length of his calf and explode in his knee. Later it feels like a shotgun blast in his leg
every time he walks on it.
Guy hobbles away and reaches the backyard and the alley. What does he think to himself
about Beatty, and what Beatty had always said about how to deal with a problem? (121)
Guy thinks that Beatty is not a problem now. Guy thinks “You [Beatty] always said don’t
face a problem, burn it. Well, now I’ve done both. Good-bye, Captain.”
Why does Guy turn back, and what does he find? (122)
He turns back to see if there are any books left and there are a few books left where he
had hidden them, in the bushes near the garden fence.
What does Guy realize about why are there four books left by the garden fence where he
had hidden them before? (122)
Mildred had missed a few.
As he is hopping down an alley with the four books, what sudden and terrible realization
does Guy have about Beatty? (122)
Beatty wanted to die.
How does Guy feel about his having murdered Beatty? (122-123)
He had not wanted to kill anyone, not even Beatty. He feels nauseated and full of
remorse. He is so sorry …
What does Guy think about Faber, since Guy mentally identifies Faber with that radio
earpiece that had been in Beatty’s pocket when he (Guy) had burned Beatty? (123)
He had burnt Faber too, in a way. The earpiece was destroyed, burned up and melted.
What does Guy hear on the regular Seashell Radio that he still has? (124)
He hears a police alert about him and how he’s wanted by the police for murder and other
crimes against the State.
Where does Guy realize is the only place for which he can run, which is the place
towards which he has been running without even being aware of it before now? (124)
Faber’s place.
Why does Guy feel the need to see Faber again? (124-125)
He needed to refuel his fast-draining belief in his own ability to survive. He just wanted
to know that there was a man like Faber in the world. He wanted to see Faber alive and
not burnt back there. And he wants to give some money to Faber.
Where does Guy think he might go after stopping at Faber’s and giving Faber some
money? (125)
The open country, in the fields and hills.
At a gas station where Guy intends to use the bathroom to clean himself up, what
announcement does he hear on a radio? (125)
“War has been declared.”
What happens when Guy tries to cross the boulevard? (126-128)
A car tries to run him down.
What happens to Guy that saves his life as the beetle (car) bears down on him? (128)
He stumbles and falls down and the car swerves and does not hit him.
How close did the car come to hitting him, and how do we know this? (128)
It was very close; Guy sees a faint sixteenth of an inch of black tire tread on the extreme
tip of his middle finger.
Who had Guy first assumed was driving the car, and who does he then realize was
probably actually driving the car? (128)
It wasn’t the police; it was probably just some teenagers out for a thrill ride.
What does Guy imagine was the motive of the people (kids, he assumes) for trying to run
him down and kill him? (128)
They were looking to run down and kill any random pedestrian for the sheer thrill of it.
They saw him walking and just said, “Let’s get him.”
What does Guy then wonder about those kids in that car? (128-129)
I wonder if they were the ones who killed Clarisse?
What does Guy believe was the reason why the driver had swerved when he had fallen
flat? (129)
The driver probably didn’t want to risk flipping the car over, which might happen if they
were to run him over at that speed as he was lying flat.
What happens far down the boulevard, four blocks away, and what does it imply? (129)
The beetle (car) slows down, spins around on two wheels and heads back, slanting over
on the wrong side of the street, picking up speed. This implies that because they missed
him before they are trying once again to run him down and kill him for the ‘fun’ of it.
What does Guy decide to do with the four books he is carrying, and why? (129-130)
He decides to hide the books in the house of another fireman and call in an alarm on him
to frame him for the crime of owning books so he will be targeted and his home will be
burned.
How do you feel/emotionally react when Guy decides to plant the books in the house of
one of his fellow firemen and then phone in the alarm? (130)
Answers will vary.