Character Development – Fahrenheit 451

By Ray Bradbury

Pick several quotes from the text of the book after your class has read the novel (suggestions follow). Have the students match the quote with the character responsible for it. Students should then pick one or two (this makes a good final evaluation if students pick 4 or 5) of the listed quotes and explain their significance in the story, including:

1. What it says about the character’s personality/mindset

2. What it says about the character’s role in the novel

3. Why this quote in particular is more important than others in the novel.

4. How this quote relates to the general message of the story

Suggestions include:

“The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies.” ~Faber

“Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary. The public itself stopped reading of its own accord.” ~Faber

“My family is people. They tell me things: I laugh, they laugh. And the colors!” ~Mildred

“Nobody listens any more. I can’t talk to the walls, because they’re yelling at me. I can’t talk to my wife; she listens to the walls. I just want someone to hear what I have to say.” ~Montag

“Anyway, Pete and I always said, no tears, nothing like that. It’s our third marriage each and we’re independent.” ~Mrs. Phelps

“I plunk the children in school nine days out of ten. I put up with them when they come home three days a month; it’s not bad at all. You heave them in the parlor and turn on the switch.” ~Mrs. Bowles

“Read a few lines and off you go over a cliff. Bang, you’re ready to blow up the world, chop off heads, knock down women and children, destroy authority. I know, I’ve been through it all.” ~Beatty

“Caesareans or not, children are ruinous; you’re out of your mind.” ~Mrs. Phelps

“Well, the crisis is past, and the sheep returns to the fold. We’re all sheep who have strayed at times.” ~Beatty

“I don’t talk things, sir. I talk the meanings of things. I sit here and know I’m alive.” ~Faber

“Give a man a few lines of verse and he thinks he’s the Lord of all Creation.” ~Beatty

“I’ve heard there are still hobo camps all across the country, walking camps they call them, and if you keep walking long enough, and keep an eye peeled, they say there’s lots of old Harvard degrees on the tracks” ~Faber

“Better to keep it in the old heads, where no one can see it or suspect it. We are all bits and pieces of history and literature and international law.” ~Granger

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Will Rucker

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