Part 3 Burning Bright

1. Part 3 Burning Bright

2. Montag discovers his wife turned in the fire alarm • Beatty seems to regret what he must do to Montag, though he taunts Montag in a meanspirited way • Beatty forces Montag to burn his own house; Montag finds perverse pleasure in torching the interior of his home – especially the parlor walls • Faber urges Montag to escape, but Montag is hesitant due to the mechanical hound on the prowl • Beatty discovers the green ear piece in his ear and threatens to track the two-way radio to its source (Faber)

3. Did Beatty want to die? As if motivating Montag to take action against him, Beatty taunts Montag relentlessly. In one quick motion, Montag turns the liquid fire on Beatty • Montag escapes but the Hound stuns him in the leg • Montag now a criminal and an enemy of the people, a hunted man; he turns to Faber who holds some promise for Montag’s survival • War has been declared • Unforeseen danger – crossing a boulevard; dangerous; danger compounded because he has a crippled leg; he has to cross

4. Activates plan to frame firemen by setting up Black’s house; phones in the alarm • Montag and Faber plan escape • Manhunt announced and a second mechanical hound is brought in • They take precautions to throw off the scent of the hound at the river • Police can’t allow public to know of their failure so they enact a hoax • Montag a rebel and outlaw • Sees world for first time; meets up with outlaws (Granger and gang)

5. Each member chooses a book to memorize; after memorizing, burn the book so as not to get arrested; oral tradition from one generation to another • Montag confesses he once memorized some of the Book of Ecclesiastes; Granger tells him that a man named Harris knows the verses from memory, but if anything ever happens to Harris, Montag will become the book • Montag admits the failure of his plan; Granger replies that the plan may have worked had it been carried out on a national scale • Granger feels that the commune’s way of giving life to books through their embodiment in people is the best way to combat the censorship of the government

6. War about to begin and Montag briefly thinks of Millie and former life; is forced back to reality when, in an abrupt finale, the city is destroyed • Analysis – irony continues • Note that as Millie makes her abrupt departure, her worries and concern focus only on her TV family and not her husband • Montag gets revenge on the TV screens that he hates so strongly when he burns them • Poetic justice – Montag turns the flamethrower on Beatty, who collapses like a “charred wax doll”, an image the author used to describe Millie as well – shows that Beatty and Millie don’t appear as living things; they fit the mold made by a dystopian society. Beatty is charred & destroyed by the fire that gave purpose and direction to his own life

7. Montag feels justified in his actions, curses himself for having to take such violent action • He is not a vicious killer, but a man with a conscience • Realizes Beatty wanted to die; he didn’t try to save himself • Although Beatty seemed the most severe critic of books, he, in fact, thought that outlawing individual thinking and making people conform stifled society; Beatty was a man who understood his own compromised morality and who privately admired the conviction of people like Montag

8. Beatty wanted to commit suicide but was evidently too cowardly to carry it out as evidenced by those who committed suicide previously; their desire for death reflects a social malaise of meaningless and purposelessness • War declared; Montag’s former life falls apart • Montag running with a wounded leg that feels like a “chunk of burnt pine log” – imagery of fire is used to suggest purification; carries the pain as a penance for all his years of destruction • River – water is symbol of regeneration and renewal/transformation; Montag dressed in Faber’s clothes means the transformation is complete; he is now a new person; baptized into a new life

9. Fire in the distance – takes on new meaning; not destructive, but warming; it heals • A small bottle of colorless fluid offered by Granger – Montag drinks and takes final step toward transformation; changes his perspiration; literally becomes a different man • Granger’s group – Montag gains a sense of warmth and personal well-being; recovers a sense of faith in the future; he begins gaining an understanding of the fire of spirit, life, immortality, as well as forgetting that fire destroys • Notice how they put out the campfire – every man lends a hand: group effort is necessary if a positive goal is ever to be reached

10. Feels some remorse over Millie; doesn’t feel anything for her; was able to offer her nothing • City is destroyed – thoughts of Millie again; imagines that just before her death, she finally sees and knows for herself how superficial and empty her life has been; he finally recalls when he met her • A new day begins – mention of the phoenix, the first cousin to man • Montag’s new life filled with hope; he recalls from the Bible: “To everything there is a season. A time to break down, a time to build up.” • Commune heads toward the city to help those who may need them

11. Montag flees to the city only to return after its destruction; they seem to have some ritualistic need to return to the city from which they escaped • Even though they escaped for political reasons, its familiarity remains psychologically comforting…the implication being that in the death of someone or something that you fiercely hate, you also loose an essential part of your identity

12. Burning Bright – allusion to “The Tyger”, a poem, a meditation about the origin of evil in the world • Tiger – symbol for a world in which evil is at work; speaks of the dual nature of all existence • Summarizes the situation at the conclusion of the book; even while the city burns brightly from the war’s destruction, the spirit of the commune also brightly burns, signifying a future of hope and optimism