The first quotation, "What a shadow she threw on the wall
with her slender body," is found in Chapter One of Ray Bradbury's
novel, Fahrenheit 451. To find meaning in this quotation, it is
important to refer to the entire sentence:
How immense a figure she was on the stage before
him; what a shadow she threw on the wall with her slender
body.
In context, Montag is
referring to the the impact his first meeting with Clarisse, his new neighbor, has had
on him. And although he tries to shake himself out of the sense that she is really an
unusual and impactful person, he cannot lose the feeling that there is something
strongly unique about her. He imagines her standing on a stage. When he refers to her as
an immense figure, he is speaking metaphorically about the personal power she has, and
then comparing that, literally, to the puzzlingly small shadow she
"displays." How could someone so impressive, cast such a small, perhaps ordinary
shadow?
If I were to paraphrase, I might
write:
[For
someone with such an impressive sense of self,] physically she appeared small and
deceivingly fragile.
Your
second quotation is also found in Chapter One. Montag has just come home, having met
Clarisse. She is unusual in that she (and it would seem her family, as well) notices
things that most folks do not. Instead of allowing the world to pass in a blur, Clarisse
notices details.
If you showed a driver a green blur, Oh, yes!
he'd say, that's grass. A pink blur! That's a rose
garden!...
Clarisse's
"details" are not unusual to the reader, but must be to
Montag:
There's dew on the grass in the morning...And if
you look...there's a man in the
moon.
This kind of talk makes
Montag nervous. They say good night and part ways, each going into his or her own
house. Perhaps because Clarisse has brought to mind noticing the
details of the world around one, Montag goes inside and stops to listen. He
hears "...the electrical murmur of a hidden wasp snug in its special pink warm nest..."
This probably refers to the noises made by the sleeping devices his wife is using—the
electrical sound comes from their bedroom. Mildred, Montag's wife, listens to music each
night in her Seashell ear thimbles, but does not close her eyes in sleep, as they are
wired open.
To paraphrase, we need a subject, for the
comparison of this metaphor. What Montag has heard is a
hum...
...that
is like an insect buzzing away in its nest, unaware of what is happening in the world
outside his safe haven.
The
metaphor gives the reader a sense of misgiving in that Bradbury chooses a wasp as the
insect in its nest; this particular "bug" is capable of causing great pain when
disturbed. This may be a description of Mildred. Or perhaps
Bradbury is suggesting in this comparison, that Mildred's daily routine, completely
condoned by society, is no threat to others as long as no one questions its presence or
validity, and this may serve as foreshadowing for Montag's behavior later in the
novel.
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