Ms. Muzaurieta S Study Guide 1 for Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

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Ms. Muzaurieta’s Study Guide 1 for Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Introduction: This novel is broken into three main parts; these parts have symbolic names. Chapters are not named or numbered, so we will do this ourselves, just to make it easier to talk about. For each chapter in this first section, I have given you room for plot summary vocabulary notes; I also ask setting, fact and analysis questions. You need to complete all questions listed below. This is not busy work –this will really help you understand the novel.

You can do this work as you read – that is, finish a chapter and immediately complete the questions – or at the end of a night’s reading – that is, answer several chapters’ questions at once. Whichever works best for you is fine. Just make sure you keep up with me. I’ll check your study guide for completion without warning! Study guide work for each chapter is due the same day as the reading.

Vocabulary: Vocabulary is an important part of literature study. In some cases, especially in Science Fiction, words may take on new or unexpected meanings. Good readers know they must figure out words they do not understand. Keep in mind that some of them are listed because they are motifs, and should be at the center of discussions about social commentary made by the book.

Understanding Bradbury’s use of language is necessary to understanding the book, so look for these words as you read. Use a dictionary and context clues…and ask in class about words you still don’t comprehend. You can fill in definitions right here on the study guide. Prepare for vocab quizzes!

Setting: Readers who understand this book pay close attention and use Bradbury’s many clues to construct their own understanding of this world. Questions you should try to answer include:

• When are we (season, year)?
• Where are we (city, state, country)?
• What technology is available that we do not have today?
• What is life like for people in this time period? What are the people like?
• In what ways is this world outdated because the book was written in 1953?

Try to answer these questions as you look at specific quotes from the text. For most, you’ll need to look up the quote to see who says it and in what context. You can fill in the speaker and the answers right on this study guide.

Fact: These questions check your comprehension of the story. You should be able to answer them easily as you read. You can fill the answers in right on this study guide. I even set some of them up as fill in the blank to make it quicker.

Analysis: You’ll need to start thinking right away. This is not a book for a lazy reader. To prepare for class, bullet your ideas about these questions. Question numbers match chapter numbers, so they can be lettered as well. Chapter 4 has two questions, for example, so these are labeled 4A and 4B. Answer both.

When I assign this work to be written out, questions are worth 5 points each and require several sentences with specific references to the novel; quotes are nice. Begin each answer by restating the question. Use separate paper; typing is preferred. You might complete these questions at home, in class, or with a group.

NOTE: Motif study is described on another paper.
Epigraph: If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.~ Juan Ramón Jiménez

Vocab: epigraph –

• Analysis Q0: Suggest a reason for Bradbury to use this particular quote as an epigraph.

Part One: The Hearth and the Salamander

Chapter 1 – pgs 3-4

Vocab: minstrel man –

Setting:

“this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world” (3)

Fact:

1. In this world, a fireman’s job is to.

2. CHARACTER. Our fireman’s name is .

3. PLOT summary:

• Analysis Q1: Why is Montag smiling? According to this passage, how does he feel about his job?

Chapter 2 – pgs 4-10

Vocab: peculiar –

Vocab: phoenix-disc –

Setting:

“the silent air-propelled train slid soundlessly down its lubricated flue in the earth and let him out with a great puff of warm air onto the cream-tiled escalator rising to the suburb” (4).
“You know, I’m not afraid of you at all…you’re just a man, after all” (7).
Speaker:
“Do you ever read any of the books you burn?”
‘That’s against the law!” (8).
Speakers:
“Houses have always been fireproof, take my word for it” (8).
Speaker:
“once billboards were only twenty feet long?” (9).
Speaker:
“It’s like being a pedestrian, only rarer” (9).
Speaker:

Fact:

1. CHARACTER. Montag meets the year old while walking home.

2. Montag is years old and has been a fireman since he was.

3. The firemen’s slogan is.

4. PLOT summary:

• Analysis Q2: Explain what makes Montag feel uneasy when he says, “You think too many things” (9). Include an explanation of what the reader learns about both Montag and Clarisse in this scene.

Chapter 3 – pgs 10-11

Vocab: subconscious –

Vocab: marionette show –

Vocab: refracted –

Vocab: foreshadowing –

Vocab: simile –

Setting:

“He put his hand into the glove hole of his front door and let it know his touch” (10).

Fact:

1. Considering whether he is happy, Montag says that he (is happy/is not happy). (Circle one.)

2. Montag stops and stares at .

3. Meeting the girl reminds Montag of a meeting a year ago. Write the quote about his memory.

4. PLOT summary:

• Analysis Q3: Montag thinks most people’s faces are like torches “blazing away” (11), but he thinks of Clarisse’s face as mirror-like. What does he mean?

Chapter 4 – pgs 11-14

Vocab: mausoleum –

Vocab: zombie –

Vocab: irony –

Setting:

“in her ears the little Seashells” (12)
“the small crystal bottle of sleeping tablets” (13)
“As he stood there, the sky over the house screamed” (13).

Fact:

1. Montag’s bedroom reminds him of a .

2. Montag kicks an .

3. Why are the screaming jet bombers an appropriate background noise?

4. CHARACTER. Montag’s wife’s name is .

4. PLOT summary:

• Analysis Q4A: Define hearth. Explain what it means in the old phrase, “hearth and home.”

• Analysis Q4B: Describe Montag’s home and what he finds when he comes home from work.

Chapter 5 – pgs 14-18:

Vocab: accumulated –

Vocab: serum –

Vocab: puff adders –

Vocab: suffocation –

Vocab: contra-sedative –

Setting:

“Hell! …We get these cases nine or ten a night…You don’t need an M.D…” (15).
Speaker:
“There are billions of us and that’s too many. Nobody knows anyone” (16).
Speaker:
“their laughter…coming from the house that was so brightly lit this late at night while all the other houses were kept to themselves in darkness” (17).
“this is the age of the disposable tissue” (17).
Speaker:

Fact:

1. The medics bring two machines. Describe them. Explain which two parts of Mildred had to be “cleaned.”

2. What does Montag do when the medics have left?

3. PLOT summary:

• Analysis Q5: Explain why the end of this chapter is ironic. (Hint: answer is on pg 18.)

Chapter 6 – pgs 18-19

Vocab: electronic bees –

Vocab: Seashell ear thimbles –

Vocab: hangover –

Setting:

“Toast…was seized by a spidery metal hand” (18)
“She was an expert at lip-reading from ten years of apprenticeship at Seashell ear thimbles” (18).

Fact:

1. How is Mildred this morning? What does she recall of the previous night?

2. PLOT summary:

• Analysis Q6: Suggest reasons that Montag does not try to explain what really happened last night.

Chapter 7 – pgs 19-21

Setting:

“It’ll be even more fun when we have the fourth wall installed” (20).
Speaker:

Fact:

1. Once again, Montag stops and stares at .

2. Montag’s annual income is . In today’s dollars, that equals .

3. PLOT summary:

• Analysis Q7: Explain Montag’s and Mildred’s very different opinions about the TV. Include how TV affects each of them.

Chapter 8 – pgs 21-24

Setting:

“I’ve got to go see me psychiatrist now. They make me go” (22).
Speaker:
“No one has time anymore for anyone else” (23).
Speaker:

Fact:

1. Explain the dandelion.

2. PLOT summary:

• Analysis Q8: Suggest reasons that Montag “felt his body divide itself” (24). (Hint: it is metaphorical.)

Chapter 9 – pgs 24-28

Vocab: olfactory system –

Vocab: proboscis –

Vocab: jolts of morphine or procaine –

Vocab: incinerator –

Vocab: trajectory –

Vocab: ballistics –

Setting:

“The Mechanical Hound slept but did not sleep, lived but did not live” (24)
“there would be betting to see which of the cats or chickens or rats the Hound would seize first” (25).
“The pole, reacting, slid upward” (26)

Fact:

1. CHARACTER. Montag’s boss is named .

2. PLOT summary:

• Analysis Q9: Explain the Mechanical Hound – its appearance, its function, the games the firemen play with it. Bonus: Draw it(on separate paper)!

Chapter 10 – pgs 28-31

Vocab: antisocial –

Vocab: abnormal –

Vocab: responsibility –

Vocab: TV class –

Vocab:funnels –

Vocab: Window Smasher and Car Wrecker places –

Vocab: playing “chicken” and “knock hubcaps” –

Vocab: jet cars andFunPark–

Fact:

1. days go by.

2. Montag does not have children because .

3. says that Montag’s laugh sounds today.

4. PLOT summary:

• Analysis Q10A: Montag asks Clarisse why he feels he has known her for “so many years” (28). Explain her reply and whether you agree with her. Explain how Montag has been influenced by Clarisse’s ideas.

• Analysis Q10B: Challenge question! Extra Credit! Look up and explain Clarisse’s metaphorical explanation of school: “It’s a lot of funnels…”(29-30).

Chapter 11 – pgs 31-32

Vocab: suicide –

Vocab:dis-ease (as opposed to disease) –

Fact:

1. days go by.

2. Montag usually sees Clarisse. Now, she .

3. PLOT summary:

• Analysis Q11: Identify the clues telling us that Montag is under suspicion. (Hint: you can use information from Q9, too.)

REFLECTION QUESTION: Think about the scene with which we started. We know Montag sets someone on fire, thus murdering the person. Why do you think this happens?
Vocabulary list (3 quizzes)

0epigraph

1minstrel man

2peculiar, phoenix-disc

3subconscious, marionette show, refracted, foreshadowing, simile

4mausoleum, zombie, irony

5accumulated, serum, puff adders, suffocation, contra-sedative

6electronic bees, Seashell ear thimbles, hangover

7~~

8~~

9olfactory system, proboscis, jolts of morphine or procaine, incinerator, trajectory, ballistics

10antisocial, TV class, funnels, Window Smasher place, Car Wrecker place, playing “chicken” and “knock hubcaps”, abnormal, responsibility, jet cars, Fun Park

11suicide, dis-ease (as opposed to disease)

12guilt, self-consciousness, soot-colored brows, bluish-ash-smeared cheeks, proclivities, flashback

13objectivity, fervor, mindlessness, gilt titles, fanatics

14~~

15~~

16fathoms of blackness, desperate, zinc-oxide-faced men, Electronic-Eyed Snake, gibbering pack of tree apes, “relatives,” cacophony, praying mantis

17radical, Dante, Swift, Marcus Aurelius, Phoenix car, Twentieth Century, “condensations, digests, tabloids,” Hamlet, censorship, mass exploitation, minority pressure, intellectual, “official censors, judges and executors,” lip-read, Little Black Sambo, heredity and environment, noncombustible data, Happiness, Happiness Boys, “melancholy and drear philosophy,” diatribe

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