Fahrenheit 451 – Fig Lang Practice
NAME_________________________________
"Reading is the most important thing in the world," asserts the author, Ray Bradbury. "To live as a civilized human being,
you've got to have something in your head."
"I have an ant farm in my head…" he says, "metaphors and ideas crawling all over each other."
"I was born a collector of metaphors," he says. "Metaphors are the center of life. I'm deeply influenced by
Greek mythology, Roman mythology. The colorful stuff, anything magical.”
Work with your partners to define the listed examples of figurative language.
Figurative Language
Metaphor
Simile
Personification
Oxymoron
a Primeau example
 “Two moonstones looked up at him
in the light of his small hand-held
fire; two pale moonstones buried
in a creek of clear water over which
the life of the world ran, not
touching them” (13).
 “[Mildred’s] face was like a snowcovered island upon which rain
might fall, but it felt no rain; over
which clouds might pass their
moving shadows, but she felt no
shadow” (13).
 “Her dress was white and it
whispered” (5).
 “The trees overhead made a great
sound of letting down their dry rain”
(6). or is this a metaphor?
 “Montag grinned the fierce grin of
all men singed and driven back by
flame” (4).
Symbolism
 “Montag was cut in half…The jet
bombers [were] going over” (13-14)
your premo example(s) – this will aid
the Fig Lang Phenom in collection
The first part of analyzing figurative language is identifying it.
“With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene
upon the world, the blood pounded in his head…” What is figurative language is it? METAPHOR
Practice identifying the figurative language:
simile/metaphor/personification/oxymoron/symbolism (circle your choice)
“He strode in a swarm of fireflies”
simile/metaphor/personification/oxymoron/symbolism (circle your choice)
“…while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch....”
simile/metaphor/personification/oxymoron/symbolism (circle your choice)
“You never wash [kerosene] off [your body]…it’s nothing but perfume to me.”
simile/metaphor/personification/oxymoron/symbolism (circle your choice)
“[Clarisse’s] face [was] bright as snow in the moonlight”
simile/metaphor/personification/oxymoron/symbolism (circle your choice)
“He saw himself in her eyes…how like a mirror, too, her face.”
simile/metaphor/personification/oxymoron/symbolism (circle your choice)
“the electrical murmur of a hidden wasp snug in its special pink warm nest.”
The next step is explaining why the comparison is important.
What is being compared to what? The fire hose is being compared to a python
Why is that particular comparison effective?
relating to the senses The fire hose and a python are similar in shape, in motion, and in
possible texture.
relating to something
deeper
Just like a python is lethal because of its tremendous power,
so too is Montag’s destructive firehose
Practice the first two steps: identify the fig. lang. and then explain its importance:
“He opened the bedroom door. It was like coming into the cold marbled room of a
mausoleum after the moon has set.” What is being compared to what? effectiveness?
“He wore his happiness like a mask and the girl had run off across the lawn with the
mask and there was no way of going to knock on her door and ask for it back.” What is
being compared to what? What is being compared to what? effectiveness?
Model for Fig Lang
___TPrimeau_____ found this example of figurative language: ”[Clarisse] had a very
thin face like the dial of a small clock seen faintly in a dark room in the middle of a night
when you waken to see the time and see the clock telling you the hour and the minute
and the second, with a white silence and a glowing, all certainty and knowing what it
had to tell of the night passing swiftly on toward further darkness, but moving also
toward a new sun.”
____________
Our team thinks it is a simile/metaphor/personification/oxymoron/symbolism.
We thought that it was meaningful because it is amazing how the entire sentence is
talking about both a digital alarm clock and Clarisse herself. Small in stature, Clarisse
has gently reached out to awaken Montag in the middle of dark times, to show him
“what time it is.” She, in her white dress, glows with certainty as she tells of times that
will only get darker before they get lighter…but, alas, there will be another morning.