I have to say, one of my favorite paragraphs in the entire story is the one Ray Bradbury wrote to describe the death of Beatty. Now, do not get me wrong, I am not one of those sickos who enjoys that kind of stuff. From a writer's point of view though, the imagery is amazing; it really gives the reader a clear cut view of how it is happening. It is like Bradbury had an image in his brain, video recorded it, then transferred the video into words. The only problem is that for some reason it made me think of the Wicked Witch of the West and her whole "I'm melting" scene for some reason. That kind of took the drama away from Beatty dying. Just read this incredible scene, though.
"And then he was a shrieking blaze, a jumping, sprawling gibbering mannikin, no longer human or known, all writhing flame on the lawn as Montag shot one continuous pulse of liquid fire on him. There was a hiss like a great mouthful of spittle banging a red-hot stove, a bubbling and frothing as if salt had been poured over a monstrous black snail to cause a terrible liquefaction and a boiling over yellow foam."
That is genius. It is so incredibly well written; this scene is played out perfectly in my mind. I am not even being one bit sarcastic right now; this little paragraph shows that Ray Bradbury definitely knows his stuff. The only part I do not care for is the yellow foam line. Why the heck was that included? He should have just ended with the snails. I used to help my mom do that to snails because they would eat her garden. I hate the yellow foam thing, though, that reminds me of a sponge, which reminds me of SpongeBob, which just totally gets me off track. Plus I really want to know if the world "liquefaction" is a real word, because it is awesome.
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