Fahrenheit 451 Notes #5

 

94 – Mrs. Phelps: husbands come and go, short war-48 hours, not worried at all

  • no tears, independent, third marriage
  • “It’s always someone else’s husband dies, they say.”
  • Don’t know anyone dead from war, just suicides

95 – conversation turn from death and war to the Clara Dove 5 minute romance

96 – Mrs. Bowles on children

  • “They sometimes look like you and that’s nice”
  • home only 3 days a month and they survive, like doing laundry “heave them into the parlor and turn the switch.”
  • “just as soon kick me as kiss me”

97 – political discussion

            Winston Noble                         vs.                    Hubert Hoag

Handsome                                                        ugly and fat

            Speaks clearly                                                  mumbles

                                                                                    Picks nose on TV

 

Just a hoax: no real candidates, just a figurehead and someone to lose to him, Hoag’s political party is called the “Outs” (i.e. the party that will lose every time)

98 – why does Montag decide to read to Mildred and her friends? “monsters”

            why do they listen to him?

99 – Montag is running blind, luckily Faber (and Mildred) use the joke cover up and he throws

  • the book into the incinerator, but first he loses it and yells at Mrs. Bowles
  • “Dover Beach” actual poem written by a soldier, Mathew Arnold

            Pain of war never really disappears, is there really a purpose for war?

            “Where ignorant armies clash by night”

100 – why does Mrs. Phelps cry?

101 – Montag’s rant to Mrs. Bowles for criticizing him for reading the poem “Go home and

think of your first husband divorced . . .” Why does he yell at her?

103 – needs to find a balance between blind rage and Faber’s fear

105 – Montag keep washing hands, Beatty notices (seems like he knows)

  • Beatty bombards him with quotations
  • Tries to show that they all contradict each other and are meaningless
  • “The Devil can cite scripture for his purpose”
    • trying to say that books are evil
    • what the saying means is that people are good or evil, not books, even the Bible can be used for evil if it is quoted out of context and twisted
    • that is what Beatty is doing by throwing all these quotations at Montag
    • Faber doesn’t respond until later, lets Montag soak it in
  • How much has Beatty read?
  • Does he really hate books? Why or why not?

110 – the fire truck stops at Montag’s house, he knew all along