Fahrenheit 451 Reading Guide
“The Hearth and the Salamander”
Questions/Quotations to Discuss for 1-24
Pg. 3
1. What do firemen do in the world of Fahrenheit 451?
2. What is written on the firemen’s helmets?
Pg. 6
3. What are the two professional symbols that Montag wears?
4. What does Montag say he always smells like?
5. Who does Montag run into on his way home?
Pg. 7
6. Why is it ironic that so many people are afraid of firemen?
Pg. 10
7. How do the doors work?
Pg. 13
8. What is etched on Montag’s igniter?
9. What did Montag hit with his foot?
10. What is Montag’s wife’s name?
Pgs. 14 - 17
11. What are the two machines being used on Montag’s wife? What do they do?
12. Where does the laughter that Montag hears come from?
Pgs. 18 – 20
13. Explain Montag’s toaster. What does it do?
14. What did Mildred have in her ears?
15. What did Mildred remember of the night before? Or what did she pretend to remember?
16. What kind of program is Mildred going to watch in the afternoon?
17. Explain Montag’s television. What does Mildred want for the television that Montag claims they cannot
afford?
Pgs. 21 – 24
18. What does Clarisse rub under her chin? Why?
19. What does Clarisse’s psychiatrist want to know?
20. According to Clarisse, how is Montag “not like the others”?
Pgs. 24 - 26
21. Describe the Mechanical Hound.
22. What do the firemen bet on dull nights?
23. What happens when Montag touches the muzzle of the Mechanical Hound?
24. How did Montag escape the Hound and get to the upper level of the
firehouse?
Pgs. 26 – 28
25. What is Montag’s theory on why the Hound reacted the way it did?
26. How many times before had the Hound reacted this way toward Montag?
27. Why has Montag never had any children?
Pgs. 29 - 32
28. What is different about Montag’s laugh?
29. Explain a school day in the world of Fahrenheit 451.
30. Why does Clarisse find it odd that people find her to be antisocial?
31. Name one thing that Clarisse talks about that is different today than in the
past.
32. What did the radio in the firehouse say?
pgs. 33--35
33. What happens to people that try to fool the government?
34. Why was Montag foolish to use the phrase “Once upon a time”?
35. What is the history of Firemen of America?
Questions/Quotations for
24-48.
36. How is the fire engine described?
Pgs. 36 – 40
37. What was different at the woman’s house than typical burnings? What did Montag not like about the way
things were being done?
38. What does Montag do with the book that lands in his hand?
39. What does Beatty say to the woman about the books?
40. Who started the fire at the woman’s house?
41. What piece of information does Beatty share with Montag that refers back to something the woman had
said?
Questions/Quotations for 48-68
Pgs. 41-46
42. What question does Montag ask his wife when he finally talks to her?
44. What does Montag notice about the television shows?
Pgs. 47 - 52
45. What does Mildred say about Clarisse to Montag?
46. What did Montag imagine being outside his window?
47. What excuse is Montag trying to use to avoid going to work?
48. Why does Montag not want to go to work anymore?
What are some revelations he has had?
49. Who comes to visit Montag?
Pgs. 53 – 59
50. What does Mildred find behind Montag’s pillow?
51. What word became a swear word?
Pgs. 60 – 68
52. Why does society lower the kindergarten age year after year?
53. According to Captain Beatty, if you don’t want a man unhappy
politically, what do you do?
54. What does Beatty say about firemen taking books?
55. According to Clarisse’s uncle, why did the architects get rid of front porches?
56. About how many books had Montag hidden in the ventilator?
57. What happens right before Montag and Mildred begin to read the books?
“The Sieve and the Sand”
Pg. 71 – 73
1. Montag and Mildred think someone is at the door. Why doesn’t
the door-voice tell them if someone is there?
2. What does Mildred think is at the door? What is at the door?
3. What is Montag talking about when he says he saw a snake?
4. What is a rumor Montag has heard?
Pg. 74 – 75
5. What does Montag remember when he is wondering where to
get a teacher?
6. Who is the English Professor?
7. Why did the last liberal arts college shut down?
8. When Faber was about to leave Montag, he said some things.
What did Montag think he was reciting?
9. What does Faber mean by “I don’t talk things, sir.
I talk the meaning of things. I sit here and know I’m alive” (75)?
10. What does Faber give Montag at the end of their meeting?
Pg. 76 – 77
11. What are some of the books that Montag asks Faber about?
12. Why is Faber afraid to ask?
13. Why is Mildred excited?
14. What is the name of the show that Mildred plans to watch?
15. What question does Montag ask Mildred?
Pg. 78 – 79
16. While Montag is on the train what does he remember about when he
was a child?
17. Why is he trying to remember the Bible?
18. What is causing Montag to have a difficult time reading the Bible?
Question/Quotation for 71-93
19. How does Montag begin to behave? What is the reaction from the other riders?
Pg. 80 – 82
20. Whom does Montag visit?
21. How is Professor Faber described?
22. According to Faber, what does Jesus do on the parlor walls?
23. According to Faber, why is Faber a coward?
Pgs. 83 – 87
24. What are the three qualities that Faber says are needed?
25. What idea did Montag have?
26. What is Faber’s reaction to Montag’s idea?
27. What idea does Faber suggest to Montag about printing extra copies?
Pgs. 88 – 91
28. What does Montag do to the Bible to try to get Faber to agree to help?
29. What does Faber give Montag to help him out with his meeting with Beatty?
Pgs. 92 – 94
30. Describe the bank.
31. Describe the show that Mildred and her friends are watching?
32. What does Montag do to the parlor walls?
33. What questions does he ask?
34. What happened to Gloria’s husband?
Pgs. 95 – 99
35. How did Mrs. Bowles have two children?
36. What were Mrs. Bowles’s reasons for having children?
37. Describe Mrs. Bowles’s way of parenting.
38. How did the women vote? What did they use for criteria
when voting for president?
39. What does Montag do after he can’t take the women anymore?
40. What is the name of the poem Montag reads?
Questions/Quotations for 93-110
Pgs. 100 – 104
41. What is Mrs. Phelps’s reaction to the poem?
42. What does Montag do with the book after he has read the poem?
Pgs. 105 – 110
43. What does Beatty say when he sees Montag in the firehouse?
44. According to Beatty, why does he quote from the books that Montag clings to?
45. What house do the firemen go to?
“Burning Bright”
Pgs. 113 – 115
1. What hint does Captain Beatty say he sent to Montag that he must not have picked up on?
2. What does Mildred have in her hand when she walks out of the house?
3. What does Montag suspect Mildred of doing?
Questions/Quotations for 113-136
4. What does Beatty say is the real beauty of fire?
Pgs. 116 – 118
5. Instead of using kerosene, Captain Beatty wants
Montag to use what to burn down his house?
6. How does Montag figure the books got back into the house?
7. What does Beatty say to Montag as he is
finishing burning the house?
8. Who called in the alarm?
9. What did Beatty do to Montag?
10. What happened to the “green bullet” radio that
Faber gave to Montag?
11. What does Beatty say he will do with the radio?
Pgs. 119 – 121
12. What did Montag do to Beatty?
13. What was the reaction of the other two firemen?
14. Explain Montag’s dealing with the Hound.
15. What happens to Montag as he leaving the Hound?
16. Why was Montag having a hard time getting away?
Pgs. 122 – 124
17. What does Montag find in his old garden?
18. Montag thinks to himself that Captain Beatty
probably wanted to do what?
19. Why is Montag having a difficult time getting up?
20. What does Montag hear in the Seashell?
21. To where does Montag realize he is running?
Pgs. 125 – 130
22. Why was Montag having such a difficult time
getting across the street?
23. After Montag makes it across the street, from
whom does he hide?
24. What does Montag do to the Black family?
Pgs. 131 – 134
25. What does Faber say there are a lot of along the
railroad tracks?
26. Where does Faber say he is going? Why is he going there?
27. What has been brought from a different district to
track down Montag?
Pgs. 135 – 138
28. Why does Montag tell Faber to burn the bed spread and the chair?
29. Why doesn’t Faber give Montag another “green bullet”?
30. What does Montag watch on the parlor walls?
31. What do the police suggest everyone do at the same time?
32. What did Montag do when he got to the river?
Pgs. 139 – 142
33. Because the __________ wouldn’t stop burning, Montag would.
34. What does Montag think of when he smells the hay?
Pgs. 143 – 145
35. What did Montag think was looking at him?
36. What was it that was looking at him?
37. What did Montag hit with his foot?
38. What was the single fact that Montag could not prove?
Questions/Quotations for
137-154
Pgs. 146 – 149
39. What does Montag see?
40. What do the men offer Montag?
41. What is the name of the man that is talking to Montag?
42. What is the colorless fluid in the small bottle supposed to do?
43. Why is the chase still going on if they have lost Montag?
44. What does Montag see in the portable viewer?
45. How was it possible that not even Montag’s friends would recognize
that the man they caught wasn’t him?
Pgs. 150 – 160
46. Where is Montag keeping the Book of Ecclesiastes?
47. What does Granger think their job is?
48. How does Montag feel about Mildred still being in the city?
49. What does Montag see happening in the city?
50. What other book does Montag realize he has remembered?
Pgs. 161 – 165
51. What does Granger compare man to?
52. What kind of factory does Granger say they are going to build?
Questions/Quotations for
155-165