salamander a mythological reptile, resembling a lizard, that was said to live in fire. In the concept of nature, the salamander is a visual representation of fire. In mythology, it endures the flames without burning.
the salamander devours its tail Faber, who creates a way to implicate firemen in their own menace and therefore eradicate them, characterizes his plot with an image of self-destruction.
the sheep returns to the fold. We're all sheep who have strayed at times Beatty alludes to the prophecy in Isaiah 53:6: "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned ever one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." The message implies that Montag has betrayed his fellow firemen.
Stoneman and Black firemen whose names suggest that the hardness of their hearts and the color of their skin and hair come from contact with smoke.
Sweet food of sweetly uttered knowledge a line from Sir Philip Sidney's Defense of Poesy.
That favorite subject. Myself. taken from a letter of the British biographer James Boswell, dated July 16, 1763. The quotation emphasizes the chasm that separates Montag from Mildred, who shuns self-analysis and submerges herself in drugs and the television programs that sedate her mind.
That's what the lady said snappy stage comeback that Mildred uses in place of normal conversation.
There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats, for I am arm'd so strong in honesty that they pass by me as an idle wind, which I respect not Beattytaunts Montag with a passage from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Act IV, Scene iii, Line 66.
theremin named after Russian inventor Leon Theremin; an early electronic musical instrument whose tone and loudness are controlled by moving the hands in the air between two projecting antennas.
there's lots of old Harvard degrees on the tracks Faber refers to the educated people who have dropped out of sight to live the hobo life outside the city.
They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts a verse taken from Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, which in turn paraphrases a line from Beaumont and Fletcher's Love's Cure, Act III, Scene iii.
This age thinks better of a gilded fool, than of a threadbare saint in wisdom's school a couplet from Thomas Dekker's Old Fortunatus.
this electronic cowardice Faber, an old man who is too fearful to confront Captain Beatty, is willing to direct Montag's confrontation through his electronic listening and speaking device.
this great python the fire hose, which resembles a great serpent; a key image in the novel that serves as a reminder of Adam and Eve's temptation to disobey God in the Garden of Eden.
Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine from Chapter 1 of Dreamthorp, a collection of essays by Alexander Smith, a Glasgow lacemaker.
To everything there is a season Montag recalls an often-quoted segment of Ecclesiastes 3:1–8, which reminds him that there is a time for dying as well as a time for living.
Tower of Babel in Genesis 11:1–9, the mythic explanation of how Noah's children came to speak different languages. The word babel means a confusion of voices, languages, or sounds.
trench mouth an infectious disease characterized by ulceration of the mucous membranes of the mouth and throat and caused by a bacterium; derived from its prevalence among soldiers in trenches.
Truth is truth, to the end of reckoning Beatty's montage of quotations rambles on to a verse from Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, Act V, Scene i, Line 45.
Truth will come to light, murder will not be hid long! from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, Act II, Scene ii, Line 86.
TV parlor a multidimensional media family that draws the viewer into action, thereby supplanting the viewer's real family.
the tyranny of the majority from John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton's History of Freedom and Other Essays.
