Literary Skills and Analysis
Directions: Answer each of the following questions in complete sentences.
1. Choose a word from F451 that you didn't know or you found difficult. Discuss a strategy you used to interpret the meaning of the word.
The word I don’t know that I found difficult with is was apprenticeship, and I used a simple strategy of rooting the word, apprentice which is like a follower, and –ship would be sort of the action. So the action is of following.
2. Choose two words from F451 made up of roots, prefixes or suffixes. Break down the word and define and discuss its component parts.
Apprenticeship
Apprentice - works for an expert to learn a trade
Ship- noun or the object that possesses the attribute in question
Incinerator
Incinerate- To burn thoroughly to destroy.
Ator- Poses a person who does it.
3. Discuss a difficulty you had in comprehending F451 and discuss a strategy you used to overcome that difficulty. How did you trouble shoot?
I had a difficulty comprehending Faranheit 451 because it was really hard to interpret in real life, and I used the strategy that consisted of relating all those scenarios to past events in the media.
4. Provide examples from F451 of each of the following elements of figurative language. Discuss what they are and how they are used. (Metaphor, Simile, Personification, Hyperbole)
Metaphor – “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover”
Simile – “An Apple, a pear, a glass of milk”
Personification – “One drop of rain. Clarisse. Another drop. Mildred. A third. The uncle. A fourth. The fire tonight. One, Clarisse. Two, Mildred. Three, uncle. Four, fire, One, Mildred, two, Clarisse. One, two, three, four, five, Clarisse, Mildred, uncle, fire, sleeping-tablets, men, disposable tissue, coat-tails, blow, wad, flush, Clarisse, Mildred, uncle, fire, tablets, tissues, blow, wad, flush. One, two, three, one, two, three! Rain. The storm. The uncle laughing. Thunder falling downstairs. The whole world pouring down.”
Hyperbole- “"Maybe you took two pills and forgot and took two more, and forgot again and took two more, and were so dopy you kept right on until you had thirty or forty of them in you."
5. Provide examples from F451 of each of the following literary devices. Discuss what they are and how they are used. (Foreshadowing, Idiom, Imagery, Alliteration, Monologue, Dialogue, Assonance, Analogy, Onomatopoeia, Mood, Tone)
Foreshadowing – “Or was the atmosphere compressed merely by someone standing very quietly there, waiting?”
Idiom – “You don't need an M.D., case like this; all you need is two handymen, clean up the problem in half an hour. Look"
Imagery – “The bloodstream in this woman was new and it seemed to have done a new thing to her. Her cheeks were very pink and her lips were very fresh and full of colour and they looked soft and relaxed. Someone else's blood there. If only someone else's flesh and brain and memory. If only they could have taken her mind along to the dry-cleaner's and emptied the pockets and steamed and cleansed it and reblocked it and brought it back in the morning.”
Alliteration – “"Why is it," he said, one time, at the subway entrance, "I feel I've known you so many years?"”
Monologue – “"What is there about fire that's so lovely? No matter what age we are, what draws us to it?" Beatty blew out the flame and lit it again. "It's perpetual motion; the thing man wanted to invent but never did. Or almost perpetual motion. If you let it go on, it'd burn our lifetimes out. What is fire? It's a mystery. Scientists give us gobbledegook about friction and molecules. But they don't really know. Its real beauty is that it destroys responsibility and consequences. A problem gets too burdensome, then into the furnace with it. Now, Montag, you're a burden. And fire will lift you off my shoulders, clean, quick, sure; nothing to rot later. Antibiotic, aesthetic, practical."
Dialogue – “Montag stood looking in now at this queer house, made strange by the hour of the night, by murmuring neighbour voices, by littered glass, and there on the floor, their covers torn off and spilled out like swan-feathers, the incredible books that looked so silly and really not worth bothering with, for these were nothing but black type and yellowed paper, and ravelled binding.”
Assonance – “There was a hiss like a great mouthful of spittle banging a redhot stove, a bubbling and frothing as if salt had been poured over a monstrous black snail to cause a terrible liquefaction and a boiling over of yellow foam.”
Analogy – “I wrote a book called The Fingers in the Glove; the Proper Relationship between the Individual and Society, and here I am! Welcome, Montag!”
Onomatopoeia – “The train hissed to its stop.”
Mood – “IT WAS A PLEASURE TO BURN
IT was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He strode in a swarm of fireflies. He wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning.”
Tone –
“He saw himself in her eyes, 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.”
6. How does foreshadowing play a role in the plot of F451? Provide examples.
Foreshadowing in the beginning mentions many important characters and new events later on the book, and an example can be Clarisse being introduced before Mildred, showing that she’s important.
7. Compare a character in F451 with a character from a different novel that you have read. Give specific examples from the text.
I think that Clarisse McClellan can be like Jeff in “Sleeping Freshmen” because they both think very differently and that they both have unfortunate fates happen to them. They both think very differently.
“"I guess it's the last of the dandelions this year. I didn't think I'd find one on the lawn this late. Have you ever heard of rubbing it under your chin? Look." She touched her chin with the flower, laughing.
"Why?"
"If it rubs off, it means I'm in love. Has it?"
8. Based on F451, what inferences could you make about Bradbury’s point of view of society? Support your inference with two specific references to the novel.
That today’s society is too involved around technology and has not appreciated what and where things come from, nor do we appreciate where things are going to go.
“There are too many of us, he thought. There are billions of us and that's too many. Nobody knows anyone. Strangers come and violate you. Strangers come and cut your heart out. Strangers come and take your blood. Good God, who were those men? I never saw them before in my life!”
“The innocent man stood bewildered, a cigarette burning in his hand. He stared at the Hound, not knowing what it was. He probably never knew. He glanced up at the sky and the wailing sirens. The cameras rushed down. The Hound leapt up into the air with a rhythm and a sense of timing that was incredibly beautiful. Its needle shot out. It was suspended for a moment in their gaze, as if to give the vast audience time to appreciate everything, the raw look of the victim's face, the empty street, the steel animal a bullet nosing the target.”
9. Based on the information in F451, what inference could you make about what must have happened before the story began? Include one detail from the story in your answer.
That before the story that books began to be illegal because they prosper different opinions and that leads to controversy. In the book, it mention that firemen used to put out burning houses, not burn them.
10. What are two elements typical of a drama? Discuss whether F451 would be suitable for dramatization.
Tragedy and Love are really 2 main parts of F451. Faranheit would not be suited because it doesn’t have either, it just has the reality of life inside the book.
11. Give an example of imagery from F451 that creates a sense of peace and explain how it creates this feeling.
IT was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He strode in a swarm of fireflies. He wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning.
12. Give an example of imagery from F451 that creates a sense of fear and explain how it creates this feeling.
“And a lot of it will be wrong, but just enough of it will be right. We'll just start walking today and see the world and the way the world walks around and talks, the way it really looks. I want to see everything now. And while none of it will be me when it goes in, after a while it'll all gather together inside and it'll be me. Look at the world out there, my God, my God, look at it out there, outside me, out there beyond my face and the only way to really touch it is to put it where it's finally me, where it's in the blood, where it pumps around a thousand times ten thousand a day. I get hold of it so it'll never run off. I'll hold on to the world tight some day. I've got one finger on it now; that's a beginning.”
13. What truths about being human does F451 reveal? Support your answer with specific references to both texts.
That humans don’t appreciate the little things in life, and that we make things highly exaggerated and when things that do matter come our way, we don’t know what to do in the face of the moment, so we let things slip away. One example was the meeting with Clarisse, and not having their friendship last longer.