Fahrenheit 451
Teacher's Guide - Essay Topics

Introduction

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Capstone Project Ideas

Essay Topics

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NCTE Standards

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The discussion activities and writing exercises in this Guide provide you with possible essay or exploration topics for your students. In addition, Discussion Questions in the Reader’s Guide may be used as prompts for further investigation. Other ideas for essays are provided here. For essays, students should organize their ideas into a thesis about the novel. This statement or thesis should be focused, with clear reasons supporting their conclusion. The thesis and supporting reasons should be backed by references to the text.

1. Supplement Handout Three with additional research on Ecclesiastes. Explain why Bradbury chose Ecclesiastes to be the material that Montag would memorize. How does this expand on other themes within the novel? How might this be the right guide for Montag’s further development?

2. Beatty’s dying words are quoted from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar:“There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats, for I am arm’d so strong in honesty that they pass me in an idle
wind, which I respect not!” (p. 119) Beatty mocks Montag as a “second hand litterateur.”
Explain why Bradbury would portray the fire Captain as a literary expert.Why has Bradbury
chosen these final words for Beatty?

3. Consider the symbolism of fire in the novel. Explore passages where fire significantly
factors into the story. How does Montag’s understanding of fire (and/or burning) change
throughout the novel? At the end of the novel Granger looks at the fire and says,“phoenix.”
(p. 163) How does fire capture both destruction and renewal?

4. Mildred’s leisure makes her suicidal. Faber argues for the leisure of digesting information.
Beatty mocks how people “superorganize super-super sports.” What is wrong with the
concept of leisure in Montag’s world? Does Bradbury succeed in establishing a new idea of
leisure by the end of the novel? Why or why not?

5. Does Montag kill Beatty out of self-defense or to preserve something lost? Has Montag
avenged the deaths of Mrs. Hudson and Clarisse? Can Montag justify murder in defense
of books? Finally, do the extreme circumstances of Montag’s world justify lawless behavior to
preserve the freedom to read?

6. As noted in the reader’s guide, Bradbury has suggested the story turns on the input from a teenager, Clarisse. Explore Clarisse’s character in detail, explaining her motivations and the
values she represents.Why must Clarisse be killed or silenced?

7. Near the novel’s end, Granger tells Montag “the most important single thing we had to pound into ourselves is that we were not important.” (p. 153) What does he mean? How does
Granger’s statement reflect a major theme of the novel?