Fahrenheit 451, pages 21-49

Answer the following questions in complete sentences.

1. Describe the Mechanical Hound. (Any words you use from the text should be in quotation marks.)

“Light flickered on bits of ruby glass and insensitive capillawry hairs in the nylon-brushed
nostrils of the creature that quivered gently, gently, gently, its eight legs spidered under it on
rubber-padded paws” (Bradbury 22). A robotic aggressive spider-dog.

2. How does Clarisse describe kids her age? What do they do and what is school like?
“They run us so ragged by the end of the day we can’t do anything but go to bed or head for a Fun
Park to bully people around, break windowpanes in the Window Smasher place or wreck cars in the
Car Wrecker place with the big steel ball, or go out in the cars and race on the streets, trying to see
how close you can get to lamp-posts, playing ‘chicken’ and ‘knock hub-caps.’ I guess I’m everything
they say I am, all right” (Bradbury 27). She also says that kids hurt and kill each other.

“Sometimes I’m ancient. I’m afraid of children my own age. They kill each other” (Bradbury 27).

3. What further insight do we get into the marriage/relationship between Mildred and Montag? Give a quote to
support your answer.

“And he thought of her lying on the bed with the two technicians standing straight over her, not
bent with concern, but only standing straight, arms folded. And he remembered thinking then
that if she died, he was certain he wouldn’t cry. For it would be the dying of an unknown, a
street face, a newspaper image” (Bradbury 41).

Not very good. She was always harsh on him and unattractive. They always argue, and they
can’t even remember the first time they met.

4. Explain the effect that the woman whose house they burned had on Montag. Give a quote to support your
answer.

After throwing up, Montag said dreadfully to his wife, “We burned a thousand books.
We burned a woman” (Bradbury 47). It is obvious that the incident was traumatizing
for him, and made him question himself as well as the world around him, and gave
him an even deeper curiosity about the world of books. He also said, “No, not
water;fire. You ever seen a burned house? It smolders for days. We’l, this fire’ll last me
the rest of my life. God! I’ve been trying to put it out, in my mind, all night. I’m crazy
with trying” (Bradbury 48).