Formative Review
6 Quotes for Stations
Quote A “I’m not thinking I’m just doing like I’m told, like always. You said get the money and I got it. I didn’t
really think of it myself. When do I start working things out on my own?” p. 92
Q1: How is this quote representative of a dystopia? (A society controlled by an oppressive government
that limits free speech and thought)
Q2: What type of point of view does this quote demonstrate? (first person)
Q3: What theme is Bradbury portraying by this quote? (As an individual it is important to challenge ideas
rather than accept them as absolutely correct.)
Q4: What is the author’s purpose of this passage? (to show how Montag is beginning to question things
and think for himself.)
Quote B “The street empty, the house burnt like an ancient bit of stage scenery, the other homes dark, the
Hound here, Beatty there, the two other fireman another place, and the Salamander?...He gazed at
the immense engine. That would have to go, too.” p. 121
Q5: What key symbol is mentioned in this quote? What does it symbolize? (Salamander –mythical
reptile that survives fire, Montag)
Q6: What literary term is used in this quote? Explain its significance (simile, not real – more like a reality
show)
Q7: Why does Montag burn everything? (inference character – pride and anger)
Quote C “How like a mirror, too, her face. Impossible; for how many people did you know who refracted your
own light to you? People were more often—he searched for a simile, found one in his work—torches,
blazing away until they whiffed out. How rarely did other people’s faces take of you and throw back
to you your own expression, your own innermost trembling thought?” p. 11
Q8: Name two literary terms used in this quote and explain their significance? (simile – like a mirror –
showing the truth, metaphor – people were torches – individuals)
Q9: What key symbol is mentioned in this quote? What does it symbolize? (mirror)
Q10: What does refracted mean? reflected
Quote D “Montag had done nothing. His hand had done it all, his hand, with a brain of its own, with a
conscience and a curiousity in each trembling finger, had turned the thief. Now it plunged the book
back under his arm, pressed it tight to sweating armpit, rushed out empty, with a magician’s flourish!”
Q11: Which sentence demonstrates parallelism? (Now it plunged the book back under his arm, pressed
it tight to sweating armpit, rushed out empty, with a magician’s flourish!”)
Q12: What is Montag’s internal conflict leading up to this passage and during it? (at first to take the
book or not, then to take the blame and acknowledge he did something wrong or to convince himself he
was innocent and blame his hand)
Q13: What literary term is used in this quote? (personification – his hand with a brain of its own)
Quote E “And when the war’s over, someday, some year, the books can be written again, the people will be
called in, one by one, to recite what they know and we’ll set it up in type until another Dark Age,
when we might have to do the whole damn thing over again. But that’s the wonderful thing about
man; he never gets so discouraged or disgusted that he gives up doing it all over again, because he
knows very well it is important and worth the doing.” p. 153
Q14: What is the main idea of this passage? (Man doesn’t give up when something is important to him.)
Q15: Give an example of an allusion from this passage. (Dark Age)
Quote F “Fahrenheit 451 is one of Bradbury’s most famous books, and it reads like a fever dream—intensely
cinematic, directed by its own weird dream logic, and full of the quality of images that haunt you for
days. The book is a cautionary tale about what happens when books are forgotten or actively
suppressed, and it forms one of its own best arguments in favor of the book as a keystone to
intellectual freedom. The society it describes is a dystopia, but unlike other famous dystopias like
1984 and Brave New World, the book holds out some hope, however fragile and tentative.”
Q16: What literary term is used in this quote? Explain its significance (simile – reads like a fever dream)
Q17: According to this author, what makes a good book? (quality of images – cinematic, reads like a
dream-flows)