Name______Date ______Period______

Fahrenheit 451: Final Major Grade

For each topic, make notes of the points you’d like to discuss in class. Each topic should have multiple topics that you could contribute to the conversation. Each topic should include textual evidence and personal commentary. Each topic should include references to the book- quotes/paraphrased excerpts or page numbers.

  1. Montag comes to learn that "firemen are rarely necessary" because "the public itself stopped reading of its own accord." Bradbury wrote his novel in 1953: To what extent has his prophecy come true today?

Textual Evidence: / Personal Commentary:
  1. Clarisse describes a past that Montag has never known: one with front porches, gardens, and rocking chairs. What do these items have in common, and how might their removal have encouraged Montag's repressive society?

Textual Evidence: / Personal Commentary:
  1. "Don't look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library," Faber tells Montag. "Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore." How good is this advice?

Textual Evidence: / Personal Commentary:
  1. It may surprise the reader to learn that Beatty is quite well read. How can Beatty's knowledge of and hatred for books be reconciled?

Textual Evidence: / Personal Commentary:
  1. How does the destruction of books lead to more happiness and equality, according to Beatty? Does his lecture to Montag on the rights of man sound like any rhetoric still employed today?

Textual Evidence: / Personal Commentary:
  1. Beatty tells Montag that firemen are "custodians of peace of mind" and that they stand against "those who want to make everyone unhappy with conflicting theory and thought." How well are the firemen accomplishing these objectives? Are conflicting ideas the only source of unhappiness in their society? What other sources might there be? Can conflicting ideas exist even without books that have been destroyed and outlawed?

Textual Evidence: / Personal Commentary:
  1. How plausible is the future envisioned in this novel? Specifically, do you think the author provides a convincing account of how censorship became so rampant in this society?

Textual Evidence: / Personal Commentary:
  1. Discuss Montag’s relationship with Mildred. Is this a typical marital relationship in their culture? Discuss the role of family in the characters’ lives, particularly in relation to the TV parlor “families” and their nature and function.

Textual Evidence: / Personal Commentary:
  1. Describe Clarisse’s effect on Montag and her function in the novel. How and why does she change him? Why does she vanish from the novel?

Textual Evidence: / Personal Commentary:
  1. What roles do Clarisse, the Unidentified Old Woman, Faber, and Beatty play in reeducating Guy Montag? How does each character influence Montag's change? How do these characters question his beliefs? How does he answer their questions?

Textual Evidence: / Personal Commentary:

Write two of your own discussion questions. These should broad topics that other students would be able to form “on the spot” commentary to contribute to a valuable conversation.

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