It is important to remember what has just happened to Guy
Montag before he realises that his wife, Mildred, has taken an overdose. Note how his
conversation with Clarisse has made him aware of a real emptiness within himself and the
fact that he is not happy. In addition, the realisation that his wife has taken an
overdose and tried to kill herself produces an intense emotional reaction in Guy Montag,
which is mirrored uniquely by the jets screaming across the sky. Note how these jets are
described:
As
he stood there the sky over the house screamed. There was a tremendous ripping sound as
if two giant hands had torn ten thousand miles of black lines down the seam. Montag was
cut in half. He felt his chest chopped down and split
apart.
These jet bombers "did
all the screaming for him" and the sound of the bombers allows him to express his
emotional desolation through his scream but also the feeling of being chopped in two.
However, note how his belief about the stars likewise indicates this as
well:
He felt
that the stars had been pulverised by the sound of the black jets and that in the
morning the earth would be covered with their dust like a strange
snow.
Again, having just been
outside at night and having just looked at the stars, this belief in their disappearance
is highly indicative of Montag's new state. It is not only caused by his wife's suicide
attempt, but also by the new-found desolation that he is aware of in himself. For a man
who burns books for a living, there is an irony in his fear that the "ashes" of the
stars will cover the earth.
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