All's well that is well in the end a paraphrase of Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well, Act IV, Scene iv, Line 35.
And on either side of the river was there a tree of life, which bore twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations a prophecy from verse two of Revelation 22, the last book in the Bible.
atom-bomb mushroom on August 6, 1945, over Hiroshima, Japan, American pilots dropped the first atomic bomb used in the war. The explosion, which rose in a straight column two hundred miles high, ballooned outward like a huge mushroom.
automatic reflex Beatty uses this term to describe how people stopped using their brains and began depending on nerve functions that require no thought.
Beatty the fire captain, who "baits" Montag, is well-named.
Benjamin Franklin founder of America's first fire company in Boston in 1736.
black beetle-colored helmet in literature, the beetle, with its prominent black horns, is a symbol for Satan. Here, vehicles resemble beetles in the dystopian society.
black cobra the "suction snake" that pumps Mildred's stomach repeats the earlier image of the python; the impersonal handymen who operate it have "eyes of puff adders." The fact that it has an eye suggests a sinister and invasive fiber optic tube that examines the inside of the body's organs and even the soul.
The Book of Job Faber selects this book of the Old Testament, which describes how Job is tested by God. The upshot of Job's struggle with suffering, loss, and temptation is that he learns to trust.
Burning Bright the heading derives from "The Tyger," a poem by William Blake.
cacophony harsh, jarring sound; mindless noise.
Caesar's praetorian guard a reference to the bodyguards that surrounded the Roman Caesars, beginning with Rome's first emperor, Octavian, later named Augustus. While holding back the mob, the praetorians wielded supreme control over the rulers who they sought to protect, and they are thought to have assassinated Caligula and replaced him with Claudius, a crippled historian who was their choice of successor.
Carcasses bleed at the sight of the murderer a line from Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Part I, Section I, Member 2, Subsection 5.
centrifuge the sight of being spun in a great gyre delineates Montag's impression of separation from reality.
Cheshire cat a grinning cat, a character from Chapter 6 of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.
Clarisse the girl's name derives from the Latin word for brightest.
coat of a thousand colors Granger alludes to Joseph, the character in Genesis 37:3–4 who receives a long-sleeved, ornamental coat of many colors from Jacob, his doting father. The coat, symbolizing favoritism shown by Jacob toward his son, alienates the other sons, who sell their brother to passing traders, stain the coat with goat's blood, and return it to their father to prove that a wild animal has eaten Joseph.
Consider the lilies of the field. They toil not, neither do they In his surreal dash on the subway toward Faber's house, Montag tries to read a line from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount from the Gospel of St. Matthew. The line, which is taken from Chapter 6, verses 28–29, concludes, "And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." This quotation reminds Montag that spiritual hunger is greater than material need.
cricket English slang for fair play; sportsmanship.
crying in the wilderness Granger compares his group's minority status to John the Baptist, the prophet whom Isaiah predicted would one day announce the coming of the Messiah (Isaiah 40: 3–5).
