Flashback

1. Flashback

2. A flashback is a literary device that interrupts the story line in order to give the reader a glimpse into something that has previously happened. Flashbacks can happen in a conversation with another character, in a dream, or in a memory. The following passage illustrates how a meeting with one character causes Montag to recall a memory from his youth. In this exercise, you learn how flashback is used to describe a character’s feelings by connecting a prior experience to a present situation.

3. “He saw himself in (Clarisse’s) eyse, suspended in two shining drops of bright water, himself dark and tiny, in fine detail, the lines about his mouth, everything there, as if her eyes were two miraculous bits of violet amber that might capture and hold him intact. Her face, turned to him now, was fragile milk crystal with a soft and constant light in it. It was not the hysterical light of electricity but—what? But the strangely comfortable and rare and gently flattering light of the candle.

4. One time, as a child, in a power failure, his mother had found and lit a last candle and there had been a brief hour of rediscovery, of such illumination that space lost its vast dimensions and drew comfortably around them, and they, mother and son, alone, transformed, hoping that the power might not come on again too soon…”

5. In your own words describe Montag’s flashback. • In the chart, compare Clarisse’s face to the last candle. • List words from the passage that suggest feelings • of security and hope. • 4. Why do you think Bradbury included this flashback?