Fahrenheit 451 Part 1 Responses

Fahrenheit 451 Part 1 Responses 1. The significance of Montag seeing his reflection in Clarisse’s eyes is that it shows that Clarisse is different. She is special. In this dystopia that Ray Bradbury has made, Clarisse is the one unique part of the society, the “flaw. ” 2. In the childhood memory that Clarisse caused Montag to recall, Montag was a child and the power went out in his house. Montag’s mother had lit a candle. He found an “hour of rediscovery, of such illumination that space lost its vast dimensions and drew comfortably around them,” and both mother and son transformed, hoping that the power doesn’t come back on. . The two mannerisms, of Montag, that Clarisse pointed out were that Montag laughs at the things she says, regardless of if they’re funny or not, and that he doesn’t take a few minutes or some amount of time to think before answering her questions. 4. The Mclellans were looked at as peculiar because they would do things such as leave all the lights open in their house, stay up, and talk with eachother. Clarisse’s uncle would often get jailed for doing something “wrong” and against the law. 5. Clarisse asks Montag, “Are you happy? ” and this is significant because this question loops in Montag’s head for the rest of the book.
This question sparks this so-called “revolution” in Montag’s head. 6. The extended metaphor that describes Clarisse through Montag’s eyes when he went inside his home was, “She had a very thin face like the dial of a small clock seen faintly in a dark room in the middle of a night when you waken to see the time and see the clock telling you the hour and the minute and the second, with a white silence and a glowing, all certainty and knowing what it has to tell of the night passing swiftly on toward further darknesses but moving also toward a new sun. ” 7.
Clarisse is inquisitive and thoughtful, and, at first, seems to irritate Montag because she challenges his beliefs with her questioning. In a society where reading, driving slowly, and walking outside are outlawed a conversation is rare, Clarisse’s love for nature and curiosity of people is extremely peculiar. She is forced to go to a psychiatrist for behaviors like hiking and thinking independently. Her family, and especially her uncle, is behind all of this. At night, the McClellan house’s lights are on contrasting with the surrounding area’s silence and darkness.

Montag accuses Clarisse of thinking too much. In the end, Clarisse opens Montag’s eyes, and recognizes that he is different from everyone else. Before they met, Montag was full of fascination with only of the fire. Montag’s feels fascinated by Clarisse, yet he also feels pressured. Clarisse takes Montag’s “mask of happiness”, and forces him to confront the deeper reality of the situation. She is like a reflection of himself. He feels that she is connected to him in some way, as if she had been waiting for him, around the corner.
As Montag looks back on his meeting with her, the encounter seems more and more important and significant. 8. The bedroom is shared by Montag and his wife, Mildred. It is cold and the opposite of homey. The significance is that Montag refers to the room as “empty”, and then says that it is not physically empty because Mildred is laying there, but feels empty, characterizing Mildred. 9. Clarisse McClellan is a beautiful and “crazy” seventeen-year-old who introduces Montag to the world’s potential with her innocence and curiosity.
She is out-casted from society because of her peculiar habits, which include hiking and asking questions, but she and her family seem happy with themselves and each other. 10. Clarisse says Montag is different from other firemen in that he stops for her and is willing to have a conversation with her. Most firemen tend to just walk away and let her babble on to herself, but Montag seems interested in the things that Clarisse says. 11. The mechanical hound is a man-made monster. It is a “hollow” enforcer that kills things that it is programmed to.
It either kills or disables its “target”. Physically, the hound has eight-legs. A needle from its nose stuns, paralyzes, wounds, poisons, and/or kills its victim. 12. Antisocial: unwilling or unable to associate in a normal or friendly way with other people, but, in the case of this novel, antisocial means someone who is odd, peculiar, someone who doesn’t follow the “rules” of society. This term is used for Clarisse. 13. Clarrise says that people don’t talk anymore. If they do talk, it is about something superficial that have no real meaning or anything of that sort behind them. 4. Montag asks if burning books had always been a fireman’s role in the society. The other firemen are shocked the question. This question offends their comfortable belief system, and Montag is dismissed as someone who is misinformed, but this is just the beginning of Montag’s “awakening. ” 15. The woman said, “Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out. ” Beatty later explains this to Montag and the others.
In 1655 a man named Latimer said this to his fellow Nicholas Ridley before they were burnt alive for heresy. Just like the firemen are ready to burn the books for their beliefs, the woman is ready to burn for her books and beliefs. Montag steals a few books and lays awake all night thinking about the powerful message that the woman had said. 16. Montag feels horrible for the old woman, but, at the same time, he feels jealous of her. She is standing up for what is right, but he hides behind his title. He steals books from her house and hides them to later read.
Even though he feels bad for this, he is actually rebelling. 17. Their job is not to put out physical fires, as it should be, but to put out the fire of discontent. As long as people remained “happy,” everything worked out. “Intellectuals” became very unpredictable and dangerous people. People who read books and thought for themselves molded ideas against the government. Firemen became the “guardians of people’s comfort”. They destroy books before people could read and use them to form ideas. These ideas could threaten equality and happiness of the people in society.