Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 : Teacher's guide

National Endowment for the Arts

TEACHER'S GUIDE

SERVICES

RAY BRADBURY'S

Fahrenheit 451

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The National Endowment for the Arts is a public agency dedicated to supporting
excellence in the arts — both new and established — bringing the arts to all Americans,
and providing leadership in arts education. Established by Congress in 1965 as an
independent agency of the federal government, the Endowment is the nation's largest
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cities, and military bases.

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professional development.

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Additional support for The Big Read has also been provided by the W.K. Kellogg
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Published by

National Endowment for the Arts
1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W
Washington, DC 20506-0001
(202) 682-5400
www.nea.gov

Sources

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. 1953. New York: Random House Publishing Group, 1996.

Acknowledgments

David Kipen, NEA Director of Literature, National Reading Initiatives

Sarah Bainter Cunningham, PhD, NEA Director of Arts Education

Writers: Philip Burnham and Sarah Bainter Cunningham for the National Endowment for the
Arts, with an introduction by Dana Gioia

Series Editor: Molly Thomas-Hicks for the National Endowment for the Arts

Graphic Design: Fletcher Design/Washington, DC

Image Credits

Cover Portrait: John Sherffius for The Big Read. Page iv: Fahrenheit 451 book cover used with
permission of Del Ray/The Random House Ballantine Publishing Group; fire image by Stockbyte
Gold/Getty Images; Page 1: Caricature of Dana Gioia by John Sherffius. Inside back cover: Ray
Bradbury, Getty Images.

July 2006

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Suggested Teaching Schedule 2

Lesson One: Biography 4

Lesson Two: Culture and History 5

Lesson Three: Narrative and Point of View 6

Lesson Four: Characters 7

Lesson Five: Figurative Language 8

Lesson Six: Symbols 9

Lesson Seven: Character Development 10

Lesson Eight: The Plot Unfolds 11

Lesson Nine: Themes of the Novel 12

Lesson Ten: What Makes a Book Great? 13

Essay Topics 14

Capstone Projects 15

Handout One: The Fifties 16

Handout Two: Science Fiction 17

Handout Three: The Book of Ecclesiastes 18

Teaching Resources 19

NCTE Standards 20

4 It was a pleasure to
burn. It was a special
pleasure to see things
eaten, to see things
blackened and changed,

— RAY BRADBURY
from Fahrenheit 451

National Endowment for the Arts

Introduction

Welcome to The Big Read, a major initiative from the National
Endowment for the Arts designed to revitalize the role of literary
reading in American culture. The Big Read hopes to unite communities
through great literature, as well as inspire students to become lifelong
readers.

This Big Read Teacher's Guide contains ten lessons to lead you through
Ray Bradbury's classic novel, Fahrenheit 451. Each lesson has four
sections: a thematic focus, discussion activities, writing exercises, and
homework assignments. In addition, we have provided suggested essay
topics and capstone projects, as well as handouts with more background
information about the novel, the historical period, and the author. All
lessons dovetail with the state language arts standards required in the
fiction genre.

The Big Read teaching materials also include a CD. Packed with
interviews, commentaries, and excerpts from the novel, The Big Read
CD presents first-hand accounts of why Bradbury's novel remains so
compelling five decades after its initial publication. Some of America's
most celebrated writers, scholars, and actors have volunteered their
time to make these Big Read CDs exciting additions to the classroom.

Finally, The Big Read Reader's Guide deepens your exploration with
interviews, booklists, timelines, and historical information. We hope
this guide and syllabus allow you to have fun with your students while
introducing them to the work of a great American author.

From the NEA, we wish you an exciting and productive school year.

Dana Gioia

Chairman, National Endowment for the Arts

National Endowment for the Arts THE BIG READ • |

Day One

FOCUS: Biography

Activities: Listen to The Big Read CD, Track
One (16:40). Read Reader's Guide essays.
Write on Jimenez quote. Have students write
about books that have influenced their lives.

Homework: Handout One. Read to page 31
in the novel *

Day Two

FOCUS: Culture and History

Activities: Listen to The Big Read CD,
Track Two (12: 10). Write about the
depiction of technology in the novel.

Homework: Finish Part One (pp. 32-68).

3

Day Three

FOCUS: Narrative and Point of View

Activities: Explore Beatty's monologue. Write
the story from Clarisse's point of view.

Homework: Begin Part Two (pp. 69-91).

4

Day Four

FOCUS: Characters

Activities: Explore Montag's relationship to
the other characters. Write about
the antagonist.

Homework: Finish Part Two (pp. 91-110).

5

Day Five

FOCUS: Figurative Language

Activities: Explore the meaning of the chapter
titles. Write using techniques of image, simile,
and metaphor.

Homework: Begin Part Three (pp. 1 1 1-130).
Read Handout Two.

Page numbers refer to the Random House Publishing Group 1996 edition of Fahrenheit 451.

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6

Day Six

FOCUS: Symbols

Activities: Review the novel to identify
symbols. Explore the Mechanical Hound
as a symbol.

Homework: Continue with Part Three
(pp. 131-145).

7

Day Seven

FOCUS: Character Development

Activities: Focusing on the myth of Icarus,
compare Montag's development to that of
Icarus. Analyze Montag's new relationship
to nature.

9

Day Nine

FOCUS: Themes of the Novel

Activities: Develop an interpretation of
the novel inspired by Faber's lecture about
civilization and books.

Homework: Work on essay.

10

Day Ten

FOCUS: What Makes a Book Great?

Activities: Explore the qualities of a great
novel and the voice of a generation.
Examine qualities that make Bradbury's
novel successful. Peer review of paper
outlines or drafts.

Homework: Finish Part Three (pp. 146-165). Homework: Student will finish their essays.

8

Day Eight

FOCUS: The Plot Unfolds

Activities: Chart a timeline of the story.
Develop a plot for the sequel.

Homework: "Afterword" and "Coda"
(pp. 167-179). Handout Three.

National Endowment for the Arts

THE BIG READ • 3

FOCUS:

Biography

Examining an authors life can inform and expand the readers
understanding of a novel. Biographical criticism is the practice of analyzing
a literary work through the lens of an author's experience. In this lesson,
explore the authors life to understand the novel more fully.

Fahrenheit 451 is, in some ways, the author s tribute to the role that books
and libraries have played in his life. After all, Bradbury wrote hundreds
of works (novels, stories, screenplays, essays, and poems) with only a high
school education, an inspiring desire to learn, and a worn out library card.

Discussion Activities

Listen to The Big Read CD, Track One (approximately 17 minutes). Students will
take notes as they listen and will present the three most important points they
learned from the CD.

Copy Reader's Guide essays, "Ray Bradbury" (pp. 4-5), "Literature and
Censorship" (pp. 6-7), and "Bradbury and His Other Works" (pp. 12-13).
Divide the class into groups. Assign one essay to each group. After reading
and discussing the essays, each group will present what they have learned from
the essay. Ask students to add a creative twist to make their presentation
memorable.

The novel begins: "It was a pleasure to burn." Why does Bradbury start the
novel in this way? Why might it be more pleasurable to burn books rather than
read them?

Writing Exercise

Bradbury opens the novel with a quote from Juan Ramon Jimenez: "If they give
you ruled paper, write the other way." Why did Bradbury select this statement,
and what does it mean? Students should write two paragraphs on how this
statement relates to what they have learned about Bradbury's life.

Have students write one page about a book that opened new doors for them. If
a book had a profound impact, explain why. If the book was pleasurable, explain
in detail what kind of pleasure was experienced. Have students present their
books, ideas, and conclusions to the class.

U] Homework

Read Handout One: "The Fifties." Read to page 31 of the novel. Consider the
differences between Montag's life and Clarisse's life.

BIG READ

National Endowment for the Arts

FOCUS:

Culture and
History

C Cultural and historical contexts give birth to the dilemmas and themes at
the center of the novel. Studying these contexts and appreciating intricate
details of the time and place help readers understand the motivations of
the characters.

Fahrenheit 451 was published in 1953, the year the Korean War ended.
The memory of Hitlers atrocities and World Wir II was less than a decade
old. The Cold War, meanwhile, had hardened into a standoff. In 1952
the United States tested a hydrogen bomb, and the Soviet Union followed
suit a year later. A year after the publication of Fahrenheit 451, the Voice
of America began broadcasting jazz worldwide. In New York, saxophonist
Charlie Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie inspired audiences with
their dynamic virtuosity. In 1956, the U.S. State Department sent Duke
Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, and Louis Armstrong on tour in the hope that
their performances would spread American democracy and alleviate the
tensions of the Cold War.

Discussion Activities

Listen to The Big Read CD, Track Two (approximately 12 minutes). After
listening to the first two tracks of the CD, your students should be able
to identify several aspects of the novel that link to trends in politics, music,
literature, and technology. Discuss NEA Jazz Master Paquito D'Rivera's
comments that relate his youth in Cuba to the themes of the novel.

Go to NEA's Jazz in the Schools Web site at www.neajazzintheschools.org. Go to
Lesson Three and play clips of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and
Dave Brubeck. Ask students to take notes as they listen. See if they can identify
patterns in the music. Team with your school's music specialist to further explore
the music of the 1950s.

Writing Exercise

Montag's television includes headphones called seashells. The "wall to wall circuit'
allows Mildred to enter the "play" and, therefore, the television programming.
How does the technology within the novel compare to our current technology?
Does technology improve the quality of life for Montag and his wife, Mildred?
Why or why not?

23 Homework

Finish Part One (pp. 32-68). Ask students to consider why the narrator
introduces us to Montag at this time of his life, when he encounters Clarisse
and confronts Mildred's overdose.

National Endowment for the Arts

THE BIG READ • 5

Lesson Three

FOCUS:

Narrative
and Point of
View

The narrator tells the story with a specific perspective informed by his or
her beliefs and experiences. Narrators can be major or minor characters,
or exist outside the story altogether. The narrator weaves her or his point
of view, including ignorance and bias, into telling the tale. A first-person
narrator participates in the events of the novel, using "I." A distanced
narrator, often not a character, is removed from the action of the story
and uses the third-person (he, she, and they). The distanced narrator may
be omniscient, able to read the minds of all the characters, or limited,
describing only certain characters' thoughts and feelings. Ultimately, the
type of narrator determines the point of view from which the story is told.

Bradbury employs a third-person limited narrator in Fahrenheit 451. We
know only Montags movements and thoughts. The narration follows
Montag like a camera, and the reader is never allowed into the lives of other
characters, except for what they say to him. This inevitably increases our
sympathy for Montag.

Discussion Activities

Reread Captain Beatty's monologue (pp. 57-59). Discuss his view that school
cultivates anti-intellectual sentiment (p. 58). Do students think it accurately
depicts their school? Do books violate the idea that "everyone is made equal"
(p. 58)?

How might this story be narrated in the first-person from the point of view of
a government official that believes burning books protects society? Have the
class brainstorm the outline of a new version of Fahrenheit 451 told from this
perspective.

Writing Exercise

Clarisse says: "People don't talk about anything ... nobody says anything

different from anyone else My uncle says it was different once" (p. 31). Begin

writing the novel in the third person using Clarisse as the central character.

Have students write a letter to Captain Beatty responding to his ideas about
education and his charge that "a book is a loaded gun" (p. 58). Do they agree
or disagree with his ideas? In the letter, students should explain their own ideas
about education and the value of books.

U] Homework

Begin Part Two (pp. 69-91). Five significant characters have been introduced:
Montag, Clarisse, Mildred, Beatty, and Faber. Have students make lists of what
motivates each of these characters.

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Lesson Four

FOCUS:

Characters

The central character in a work of literature is called the protagonist.
The protagonist usually initiates the main action of the story and often
overcomes a Haw, such as weakness or ignorance, to achieve a new
understanding by the works end. A protagonist who acts with great honor
or courage may be called a hero. An antihero is a protagonist lacking
these qualities. Instead of being dignified, brave, idealistic, or purposeful,
the antihero may be cowardly, self-interested, or weak. The protagonists
journey is enriched by encounters with characters who hold differing
beliefs. One such character type, a foil, has traits that contrast with the
protagonist's and highlight important features of the main character's
personality. The most important foil, the antagonist, opposes
the protagonist, barring or complicating his or her success.

Captain Beatty, the fire chief, is a key foil and a historian of sorts. While
Montag once followed Beatty's values, he now resists Beatty's commitment
to burning books. Meanwhile, Faber represents a musty, academic link
to the past. Clarisse McClellan, a teenager, longs for the romantic days of
front porches and rocking chairs, complaining, "we never ask questions."
Mildred, the model citizen, attempts suicide while living in a world
enchanted by television.

Discussion Activities

Divide the class into groups to examine the role of foils in the novel. Assign each
group a character: Mildred, Clarisse, Faber, or Beatty. Ask students to review the
first ninety-one pages of the novel and look for occasions when this character
brings out dramatic responses from Montag. How does the character lead
Montag toward self-realization? How does Montag's relationship to the character
change? Have students present their conclusions to the class, using specific
textual support.

Writing Exercise

Students have examined many dimensions of the protagonist by exploring
secondary characters. Have students write two pages on the character they
believe to be the antagonist. Why is this character opposed to Montag? How
does this character force him to reevaluate himself? Remind students to use
passages from the text to support their conclusions.

23 Homework

Finish Part Two (pp. 91-110). Students will write one page explaining why
Bradbury chose either "The Hearth and the Salamander" or "The Sieve and
the Sand" as a section title. In their essays, students should explain what this
title means.

National Endowment for the Arts

THE BIG READ • 7

Lesson Five

Writers use figurative language such as imagery, similes, and metaphors
to help the reader visualize and experience events and emotions in a story.
Imagery — a word or phrase that refers to sensory experience (sight, sound,
smell, touch, or taste) — helps create a physical experience for the reader and
adds immediacy to literary language.

Some figurative language asks us to stretch our imaginations, finding the
likeness in seemingly unrelated things. Simile is a comparison of two
things that initially seem quite different but are shown to have significant
resemblance. Similes employ connective words, usually "like," "as," "than,"
or a verb such as "resembles." A metaphor is a statement that one thing is
something else that, in a literal sense, it is not. By asserting that a thing is
something else, a metaphor creates a close association that underscores an
important similarity between these two things.

Discussion Activities

Begin the discussion by exploring student responses to the homework. Why did
Bradbury use "The Hearth and the Salamander" and "The Sieve and the Sand"
as section titles? How does this deepen your interpretation of these sections?

What does figurative language ask of the reader? Does exploring a novel's
figurative language train us in precisely the thinking that Beatty hates? Why or
why not?

Writing Exercise

Have students write a paragraph about their favorite place using the techniques
reviewed in class: imagery, simile, and metaphor. Vary this exercise by assigning
three paragraphs, with each paragraph using a different technique.

E3 Homework

Read pp. 111-130. Read Handout Two. Note the descriptions of the Mechanical
Hound. How is the Mechanical Hound a symbol of something else? Are there
other images in the reading that could be symbols?

8 • THE BIG REAE

National Endowment for the Arts

FOCUS:

Symbols

Symbols are persons, places, or things in a narrative that have significance
beyond a literal understanding. The craft of storytelling depends on
symbols to present ideas and point toward new meanings. Most frequently,
a specific object will be used to refer to (or symbolize) a more abstract
concept. The repeated appearance of an object suggests a non-literal, or
figurative, meaning attached to the object. Symbols are often found in
the books title, at the beginning and end of the story, within a profound
action, or in the name or personality of a character. The life of a novel is
perpetuated by generations of readers interpreting and reinterpreting the
main symbols. By identifying and understanding symbols, readers can
reveal new interpretations of the novel.

Bradbury repeats and expands certain images. Front porches and rocking
chairs symbolize the past, a time when people intermingled without the
distraction of electronic screens. The Mechanical Hound, an especially
important symbol, represents Montag's modern world and the deadly
possibilities around every corner.

Discussion Activities

Bradbury writes, "The books leapt and danced like roasted birds, their wings
ablaze with red and yellow feathers" (p. 117). Divide the class into groups that
will examine twenty-page segments of the book, starting at the beginning. Each
group will present the symbols that appear in its section. Students should be
especially attentive to the way Bradbury uses fire and books both literally and
symbolically.

Writing Exercise

Reread the detailed description of the Hound (p. 24) and the battle (p. 120).
Why might Montag's expression of affection to the Hound mark a turning point
in his development? What role does affection play in this world? What might be
the significance of Montag's final battle with the Hound? Finally, how might the
Mechanical Hound be a symbol for Montag's world?

Ask students to write about a conflict in our world. They should explain the
details of this conflict. Have students then develop a symbol to capture its
complexity.

EJ Homework

Read pp. 131-145. Ask students to think about what kind of transformation
Montag has experienced and consider whether anyone else in the novel has
undergone a similar journey.

National Endowment for the Arts THE BIG READ • 9

Lesson Seven

FOCUS:

Character
Development

Novels trace the development of characters who encounter a series of
challenges. Most characters contain a complex balance of virtues and vices.
Internal and external forces require characters to question themselves,
overcome fears, or reconsider dreams. The protagonist may undergo
profound change. A close study of character development maps, in each
character, the evolution of motivation, personality, and belief. The tension
between a character's strengths and weaknesses keeps the reader guessing
about what might happen next and the protagonist's eventual success
or failure.

Montag questions whether his profession is justified and whether the values
he has held so dear — burning books and all it implies — are wrong. Mrs.
Hudson forces Montag to question whether his life might be fundamentally
improved by reading. Is he missing something invaluable? He then
repudiates his profession. He does so partly through the intercession of
Clarisse and Faber, messengers from a world he barely understands. The
narrator explains, "Even now he could feel the start of the long journey,
the leave-taking, the going-away from the self he had been" (p. 103). By
the end of the novel, Montag has been profoundly changed. As a three-
dimensional character, Montag has an inner and an outer life unlike the
two-dimensional portraits of other characters.

Discussion Activities

In Part Three, Beatty explains "Old Montag wanted to fly near the sun and now
that he's burnt his damn wings, he wonders why. Didn't I hint enough when I
sent the Hound around your place?" (p. 113). Beatty refers to the myth of Icarus,
told in Ovid's first-century poem The Metamorphoses. A version can be found at
www.loggia.com/myth/daedalus.html. Ask students why Bradbury compares Montag
to Icarus. How does this shed light on Montag's development?

Writing Exercise

As Montag escapes the city and enters the silences of the natural world, he
looks forward to the time "needed to think all the things that must be thought"
(p. 143). He discovers "He was not empty. There was more than enough here
to fill him" (p. 144). How has the silence and emptiness of nature proved fulfilling
compared to his former life? How have books led to these realizations?

23 Homework

Finish Part Three (pp. 146-165). Ask students to begin to think about how
Bradbury has constructed the plot to reach this dramatic conclusion. Students
should come to class ready to discuss the two most important turning points in
the novel.

I 0 * THE BIG READ National Endowment for the Arts

FOCUS:

The Plot
Unfolds

The author crafts a plot structure to create expectations, increase suspense,
and develop characters. The pacing of events can make a novel either
predictable or riveting. Foreshadowing and flashbacks allow the author to
defy the constraints of time. Sometimes an author can confound a simple
plot by telling stories within stories. In a conventional work of fiction, the
peak of the story's conflict — the climax — is followed by the resolution, or
denouement, in which the effects of that climactic action are presented.

Ray Bradbury made choices about how to structure and pace events to
explore how bookbuming can erode the human imagination. In this lesson,
map the events of the story to assess the artistry of storytelling. Some of the
turning points in the novel include Mrs. Hudson's willingness to die for
books, Montag's confrontation with his wife's friends, Montag's murder
of Captain Beatty, and Montag's creative escape from the Mechanical
Hound. Punctuated by an audible refrain of flying jets as well as constant
surveillance, Bradbury amplifies Montag's unease and foreshadows war.
Montag, like a rat in a maze, turns corner after corner until he finds
an exit.

Discussion Activities

In small groups, students will map a timeline that depicts the development of the
story. This map includes the most significant turning points but also examines the
lesser events that build tension. As students develop their timelines, they should
define the beginning, middle, and end of the novel. Groups should present their
work to the class.

Have students imagine they are making a movie of Fahrenheit 451. Tell them they
have to cut certain scenes because of limited running time. Divide the class into
groups and have each suggest two scenes that could be dropped. How does
cutting certain scenes change the story?

Writing Exercise

Ask students to imagine a sequel to Fahrenheit 451. Have them outline the sequel.
What would the beginning, middle, and end of the sequel look like? Then write
the opening paragraphs to the sequel, creating a beginning that immediately
plunges the reader into the story.

EJ Homework

Read the 'Afterword" and the "Coda" (pp. 167-179). Read Handout Three.
Although we have focused on Montag as the central character, could books be
the heroes of the novel?

National Endowment for the Arts

THE BIG READ • II

Lesson Nine

FOCUS:

Themes of
the Novel

Themes are the central, recurring subjects of a novel. As characters grapple
with circumstances such as racism, class, or unrequited love, profound
questions will arise in the reader's mind about human life, social pressures,
and societal expectations. Classic themes include intellectual freedom versus
censorship, the relationship between ones personal moral code and larger
political justice, and spiritual faith versus rational considerations. A novel
often reconsiders these age-old debates by presenting them in new contexts
or from new points of view.

As one reads Fahrenheit 45 L certain themes stand out: the repression of
free thought through censorship, a proper education that values books,
the loss of culture and history, the threat that new technology may deaden
human experience, the constant demand to satisfy immediate visual and
sensory appetites, the value of authentic human interaction, and the value of
the natural world. For Bradbury, our choice to use, misuse, or discard books
relates to all these themes.

Discussion Activities and Writing Exercise

Use the following questions to stimulate discussion or provide writing exercises.
Have students link Faber's comments on books (pp. 80-89) to other passages
that reflect on the same theme.

Happiness

"We have everything we need to be happy, but we aren't happy. Something's
missing" (p. 82). How might Bradbury be defining happiness in Fahrenheit 451?
Does he present a new idea of happiness or preserve an older idea?

Knowledge

"[Books] stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us"
(p. 83). How do books draw together ideas and information so as to capture
details that might otherwise be missed?

Freedom of Thought

"The televisor . . . tells you what to think and blasts it in" (p. 84). Members of this
world have "plenty off-hours" but do they have "time to think"? What kind of
thinking do Faber and Bradbury prefer? Will it initially make life more difficult?

Education

"Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary. The public itself stopped reading
of its own accord" (p. 87). What kind of education is necessary to create citizens
who recognize "quality of information," take "leisure to digest it," and "carry out
actions based on what we learn from the first two" (p. 84)? How might this relate
to our current educational system?

Ul Homework

Students should begin working on their essays. See the essay topics at the end of
this guide. For additional questions, see the Reader's Guide Discussion Questions
(pp. 14-15). Students will turn in outlines and rough drafts at the next class.

12 * THE BIG READ National Endowment for the Arts

Lesson Ten

FOCUS:

What Make
a Book Great?

s

Great stories articulate and explore the mysteries of our daily lives in the
larger context of the human struggle. The writers voice, style, and use of
language inform the plot, characters, and themes. By creating opportunities
to learn, imagine, and reflect, a great novel is a work of art that affects
many generations of readers, changes lives, challenges assumptions, and
breaks new ground.

Discussion Activities

Ask students to make a list of the characteristics of a great book. Put these
on the board. What elevates a novel to greatness? Then ask them to discuss,
within groups, other books that include some of the same characteristics. Which
characteristics can be found in Fahrenheit 451?

A great writer can be the voice of a generation. What kind of voice does
Bradbury provide through Montag? What does this voice tell us about the
concerns and dreams of his generation?

Writing Exercise

Ask students the following questions: If you were the voice of your generation,
what would be your most important message? Why might you choose to convey
this in a novel rather than a speech or an essay? What story would you tell to get
your point across?

Have students work on their essays in class. Be available to assist with outlines,
drafts and arguments. Have them partner with another student to edit outlines
and rough drafts. For this editing, provide students with a list of things they
should look for in a well-written essay.

EJ Homework

Students should finish their essays. Celebrate by participating in a Big Read
community event.

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THE BIG READ • 13

The discussion activities and writing exercises in this guide provide you with possible essay topics,
as do the Discussion Questions in the Reader's Guide. Advanced students can come up with
their own essay topics, as long as they are specific and compelling. Other ideas for essays are
provided here.

For essays, students should organize their ideas around a thesis about the novel. This statement or
thesis should be focused, with clear reasons supporting its conclusion. The thesis and supporting
reasons should be backed by references to the text.

1. Explain why Bradbury chose Ecclesiastes to
be the material that Montag would memorize.
How does this expand on other themes within
the novel? How might this be the right guide
for Montag's further development? Refer to
Handout Three as well as additional research
on Ecclesiastes.

2. Beatty's dying words are quoted from
Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: "There is no terror,
Cassius, in your threats, for I am arm'd so
strong in honesty that they pass me in an idle
wind, which I respect not!" (p. 119) Beatty
mocks Montag as a "second hand litterateur."
Explain why Bradbury would portray the fire
captain as a literary expert. Why has Bradbury
chosen these final words for Beatty?

3. Consider the symbolism of fire in the novel.
Explore passages where fire significantly
factors into the story. How does Montag's
understanding of fire (and/or burning) change
throughout the novel? At the end of the novel
Granger looks at the fire and says "phoenix"
(p. 163). How does fire capture both
destruction and renewal?

4. Mildred's leisure makes her suicidal. Faber
argues for the leisure of digesting information.
Beatty mocks how people "superorganize
super-super sports." What is wrong with the
concept of leisure in Montag's world? Does
Bradbury succeed in establishing a new idea
of leisure by the end of the novel? Why or
why not?

5. Does Montag kill Beatty out of self-defense
or to preserve something lost? Has Montag
avenged the deaths of Mrs. Hudson and
Clarisse? Can Montag justify murder in
defense of books? Finally, do the extreme
circumstances of Montag's world justify lawless
behavior to preserve the freedom to read?

6. As noted in the Reader's Guide, Bradbury has
suggested the story turns on the input from a
teenager, Clarisse. Explore Clarisse's character
in detail, explaining her motivations and the
values she represents. Why must Clarisse be
killed or silenced?

7. Near the novel's end, Granger tells Montag
that "the most important single thing we had
to pound into ourselves is that we were not
important" (p. 153). What does he mean?
How does Granger's statement reflect a major
theme of the novel?

14 * THE BIG READ National Endowment for the Arts

apstone r rejects

Teachers may consider the ways in which these activities may be linked to other Big Read
community events. Most of these projects could be shared at a local library, a student assembly,
or a bookstore.

1. Public Presentations: Have students memorize
a paragraph of Bradbury's novel and recite
these at a public presentation. Have them
organize a Big Read (or Big Recite) night in
which they present each piece to a public
audience. Ask each one to explain why
these passages are valuable. Discuss how the
experience of memorizing affected his or her
understanding of the material.

2. Parent's Night: Have students re-enact several
different scenes from the novel as might be
done in a movie version. Ask them to write
down their lines in a script, but only in order
to memorize them. Before each presentation,
have a narrator explain the context of the
scene. After each, have a commentator explain
why the scene was chosen.

3. Ask students to create their own science
fiction scene. Have them observe a routine,
habit, or technological device that seems
commonplace. Then have them brainstorm a
future where this routine, habit, or device has
gained exaggerated prominence. What does
this world look like? Have students produce
the scene at a local bookstore, library, or Big
Read partner organization.

4. Ask students to design uniforms for Montag's
fire department. Have them create a logo
for the fire department and the Salamander.
Sketches and drawings might be displayed

at a Big Read partner institution. Ambitious
students might actually sew their designs or
create fabric models.

5. Team with your school's visual arts
specialists and ask students to illustrate the
most explosive, vibrant image in the story.
Students should select the image that was
most profound for them. They should
produce a sketch, to be presented and
reviewed in class discussion, which provides
an outline for a larger piece of visual art.
Allow students to work two-dimensionally
or three-dimensionally.

National Endowment for the Arts

THE BIG READ • 15

HANDOUT ONE

The Fifti

As much as Fahrenheit 451 is about a time in the
not-too-distant future, Ray Bradbury's novel is
anchored in the 1950s. Mildred Montag sits like
a zombie in front of a telescreen. The sound of jet
fighters crosses the sky in preparation for war. A
neighborhood sits full of cookie-cutter houses and
the complacent souls who live in them. All of these
would have been familiar scenes to a writer at work
in 1953.

The era following World War II in the United
States was known for its productivity, its affluence,
and its social conformity. The economy was strong.
The technology of television, air travel, and the
transistor brought the future to the front stoop.
The neighborhood Montag lives in probably looks
a lot like Levittown, the famous low-cost housing
developments of the age that ushered in the rise
of suburbia.

Although the 1950s are remembered as a decade
of peace and prosperity, they were anything
but. The Korean War, which ended in the year
that Fahrenheit 451 was published, saw tens of
thousands of American deaths. The larger Cold
War that lingered was a source of constant anxiety.
In the new atomic age, everyone was learning that
the world could be destroyed with the push of a
button, a fate Bradbury more than hints at in
his novel.

Not only were governments endowed with
nuclear weapons, they exercised the power to
persecute suspected enemies closer to home. The
congressional House Committee on Un-American
Activities began investigating suspected espionage
in 1946, and within a few years Senator Joseph
McCarthy of Wisconsin was charging, without
evidence, that dozens of government officials
were Communist Party members. Meanwhile,
memories of Nazi book burnings and Soviet
censorship were still fresh in people's minds.

As a result, censorship was alive and well in the
media. Communists were assailed in the press.
Comic books were condemned as subversive by
parents and educators. Images of the "organization
man" and the "lonely crowd" reflected changes in
the American spirit.

For all their prosperity and rising expectations, the
1950s were a decade of atomic tests and regional
wars; racial segregation; government censorship
and persecution; subtly enforced social orthodoxy;
and building angst. The social and psychological
problems of the era are watchfully scrutinized in
Fahrenheit 451, a book that examines an intolerant
society that seems oddly un-American in its
penchant for censorship and governmental control.

16 ' THE BIG READ

National Endowment for the Arts

HANIXHJTTWO

Science Fiction

Extremely prevalent in film and literature today,
science fiction has only established itself as a genre
in the last ISO years. Despite its recent rise to fame,
it has very old roots in mythical and philosophical
literature. Epic poems like Homers Odyssey, or
hooks like Plato's The Republic and Utopia by
Thomas More, have elements of the fantastic
anticipating the popularity of science fiction writing
in the twentieth century.

Nineteenth-century writers such as Edgar Allan
Poe {The Raven) and Mary Shelley {Frankenstein)
pioneered the genre of fantasy literature in the
emerging industrial world. But it was not until late
in the nineteenth century that H.G. Wells, Jules
Verne, and Edgar Rice Burroughs began penning
scientific romances that envisioned interplanetary
travel and alien invasions. These writers had an
extraordinary influence on the coming golden age
of science fiction.

Inspired by Hugo Gernsbacks pulp magazine
Amazing Stories, founded in 1926, science
fiction spread throughout the United States and
England. It moved from cheap magazines devoted
to futuristic stories to a legitimate branch of
literature with the plot, characters, and themes of
major novels. In so doing, a whole generation of
visionaries — among them Robert Heinlein, Isaac
Asimov, and Ray Bradbury — was introduced to a
world increasingly fascinated by the technology of
the new atomic age.

Future visions of technology and science are
essential to these stories. Common subjects have
come to include robotics, aliens, time travel,
biological experiments, and apocalyptic disaster.
Although a branch of fantasy, science fiction
often makes philosophical statements about our
current existence.

Over time, science fiction has presented not only
some of the greatest stories in modern literature
but has foreseen many developments that define
the contemporary world. Writers such as George
Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Kurt Vonnegut, and
Michael Crichton have, like Bradbury, practiced
social criticism and sometimes prophecy that has
made them favorites around the world.

Science fiction has come to embrace a wide diversity
of writers and approaches. C.S. Lewis used the
genre as a medium for religious allegory. In The
Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood imagines
a dangerous future world from a feminist point
of view. And writers like Samuel R. Delany and
Octavia Butler have created African American
characters within a genre that has come a long way
since Frankenstein.

National Endowment for the Arts

THE BIG READ • |7

HANDOUT THREE

The Book of Ecclesiastes

When Guy Montag meets Granger, he is
introduced to a community in which each member
is dedicated to learning a book by heart. Their
purpose is to commit whole texts to memory and
pass them down to future generations, surviving
the "Dark Age" of atomic war and government
censorship.

Montag chooses the book of Ecclesiastes, a text
from the biblical Old Testament probably written
about the third century BC. Narrated by the
"Teacher" who is traditionally considered to be
King Solomon, Ecclesiastes is a wonderfully diverse
collection of advice on matters including good and
evil, temptation and vice, love and hate, vanity, and
wisdom. Along with the Old Testament books of
Job and Proverbs, Ecclesiastes is an essential part of
the wisdom literature of early Jewish philosophy.

A philosophical essay rather than a narrative or
history, Ecclesiastes offers ambiguous guidance
about the nature of the world. Its tone changes
throughout; it is merciful, skeptical, loving, cynical,
sorrowful, and ecstatic. As one of its most famous
passages says, there is "a time to rend and a time to
sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a
time to love and a time to hate" (3:7-8). Ecclesiastes
does not provide any easy answers.

Ultimately, this very short book is an endorsement
of concrete human experience rather than dogmatic
abstraction. The Teacher asserts that one should
experience life as fully as possible, even if death and
God's judgment are final. The use of simple and
concrete imagery is a call to experience all one can
while learning that the difference between good
and evil is not to be fully divined by mere mortals.

The prominent themes of wisdom and mercy in
Ecclesiastes make the book a fitting choice for
Montag to learn. This is not a text that lends itself
to systematic answers. It is, in a sense, a book to
stand for all books, which in their entirety give a
loud chorus of voices, the voices that the firemen
in Fahrenheit 451 wanted to extinguish in the
first place.

I 8 ' THE BIG READ National Endowment for the Arts

Printed Resources

Aggelis, Steven L, ed. Conversations with Ray Bradbury.
Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2004.

Bloom, Harold, ed. Ray Bradbury. Philadelphia: Chelsea
House Publishers, 2000.

de Koster. Katie, ed. Readings on Fahrenheit 451.
San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2000.

Eller, Jonathan, and William Touponce. Ray Bradbury: The
Life of Fiction. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2004.

Mengeling, Marvin. Red Planet, Flaming Phoenix, Green Town:
Some Early Bradbury Revisited. Bloomington: 1st Books
Library, 2002.

Re id, Robin Anne. Ray Bradbury: A Critical Companion.
Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000.

Weist, Jerry. Bradbury: An Illustrated Life: A Journey to Far
Metaphor. New York: William Morrow, 2002.

Weller, Sam. The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray
Bradbury. New York: William Morrow, 2005.

Web sites

www.raybradbury.com

This is the official web site on Bradbury, maintained by

HarperCollins publishers.

www.spaceagecity.com/bradbury

This is a privately maintained site with considerable

information on Bradbury and his writing career.

www.raybradburyonline.com

This is a private site with valuable, but not quite up-to-
date, bibliographies.

National Endowment for the Arts

THE BIG READ • 19

t

CTE Standards

National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Standards"

6. Students apply knowledge of language
structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling
and punctuation), media techniques, figurative
language, and genre to create, critique, and
discuss print and non-print texts.

7. Students conduct research on issues and
interests by generating ideas and questions, and
by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and
synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g.,
print and non-print texts, artifacts, people) to
communicate their discoveries in ways that suit
their purpose and audience.

8. Students use a variety of technological and
information resources (e.g., libraries, databases,
computer networks, video) to gather and
synthesize information and to create and
communicate knowledge.

9. Students develop an understanding of and
respect for diversity in language use, patterns,
and dialects across cultures, ethnic groups,
geographic regions, and social roles.

1 0. Students whose first language is not English
make use of their first language to develop
competency in the English language arts and to
develop understanding of content across the
curriculum.

11. Students participate as knowledgeable,
reflective, creative, and critical members of a
variety of literary communities.

12. Students use spoken, written, and visual
language to accomplish their own purposes
(e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and
the exchange of information).

* This guide was developed with NCTE Standards and State Language Arts Standards in mind. Use these standards to guide and
develop your application of the curriculum.

1 . Students read a wide range of print and
non-print texts to build an understanding of
texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of
the United States and the world; to acquire
new information; to respond to the needs
and demands of society and the workplace;
and for personal fulfillment. Among these
texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and
contemporary works.

2. Students read a wide range of literature from
many periods in many genres to build an
understanding of the many dimensions (e.g.,
philosophical, ethical, aesthetic) of human
experience.

3. Students apply a wide range of strategies to
comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate
texts. They draw on their prior experience,
their interactions with other readers and
writers, their knowledge of word meaning

and of other texts, their word identification
strategies, and their understanding of textual
features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence,
sentence structure, context, graphics).

4. Students adjust their use of spoken, written,
and visual language (e.g., conventions, style,
vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a
variety of audiences and for different purposes.

5. Students employ a wide range of strategies as
they write and use different writing process
elements appropriately to communicate with
different audiences for a variety of purposes.

20 'THE BIG READ National Endowment for the Arts

NATIONAL
ENDOWMENT
FOR THE ARTS

'Books bombarded his shoulders, his
arms, his upturned face. A book lit,
almost obediently, like a white pigeon,
in his hands, wings fluttering. In the
dim, wavering light, a page hung open
and it was like a snowy feather, the
words delicately painted thereon. In all
the rush and fervor, Montag had only
an instant to read a line, but it blazed
in his mind for the next minute as if
stamped there with fiery steel."

-RAY BRADBURY
from Fahrenheit 451

The Big Read is an initiative of the National
Endowment for the Arts designed to restore reading
to the center of American culture. The NEA presents
The Big Read in partnership with the Institute of
Museum and Library Services and in cooperation
with Arts Midwest.

A great nation deserves great art.

:-.i .. INSTITUTE ol .,

•;.\. MuseurrhndLibrary

'•-•• SERVICES