Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451

1.

• Metaphore

"Kerosene," he said, because the silence had lengthened, "is nothing but perfume to me." Montag is comparing the smell of a perfume to kerosene, because he uses kerosene routinely to make his living.

• Simile

“ book lit, almost obediently, like a white pigeon, in his hands, wings fluttering.”

“There was only the girl walking with him now, her face bright as snow in the moonlight…” this poetic device is used to compare Clarisse’s face to the snow. Compared to Montag’s feelings about himself, she is innocence and beautiful.

• Repetition

"poor family, poor family, oh everything gone, everything, everything gone now..."

The author uses repetition to give emphasis to what he is saying. It makes us understand how the character is feeling.

• Hyperbole

“Classics cut to fit fifteen-minute radio shows, then cut again to fill a two-minute book column, winding up at last as a ten-or-twelve-line dictionary resume."

Beatty is talking about the history of firefighting and books. He is using an exaggeration to say how short they are to him compared to what they used to be.

• Personification

“With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head...”

Montag is burning a house. In this new world they spread kerosene into a fire instead of water. The personification is of a dangerous snake spitting poison. This is because a venomous snake is dangerous, just as feeding a house fire.

By applying this poetic device the fire-hose becomes less a tool used by Montag and more a force in itself, a living thing that destroys without reason.

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