In Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451,” the Mechanical Hound is a robotic dog that the firemen use to track down and capture people suspected of reading books.
The Mechanical Hound is described as “six feet tall on its metal legs. It had a great block of a head which contained enough electronic wizardry to run a small city.”
The hound is equipped with six syringes full of tranquilizers that can be injected into its victim, and it also has a built-in flame thrower.
Fahrenheit 451 Quotes With Page Numbers
The Mechanical Hound Quotes
“The Mechanical Hound slept but did not sleep, lived but did not live in its gently humming, gently vibrating, softly illuminated kennel back in a dark corner of the firehouse. The dim light of one in the morning, the moonlight from the open sky framed through the great window, touched here and there on the brass and the copper and the steel of the faintly trembling beast. Light flickered on bits of ruby glass and on sensitive capillary hairs in the nylon-brushed nostrils of the creature that quivered gently, gently, gently, its eight legs spidered under it on rubber-padded paws.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, (Character: Montag as the narrator), Part One, Pages 21, 22
“It (the mechanical hound) was like a great bee come home from some field where the honey is full of poison wildness, of insanity and nightmare, its body crammed with that over-rich nectar and now it was sleeping the evil out of itself.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, (Character: Montag as the narrator), Part One, Page 22
“Nights when things got dull, which was every night, the men slid down the brass poles, and set the ticking combinations of the olfactory system of the Hound and let loose rats in the firehouse area-way, and sometimes chickens, and sometimes cats that would have to be drowned anyway, and there would be betting to see which the Hound would seize first.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, (Character: Montag as the narrator), Part One, Page 22
“Montag touched the muzzle. The hound growled. Montag jumped back.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, (Character: Montag as the narrator), Part One, Page 23
“It doesn’t like or dislike. It just “functions.” It’s like a lesson in ballistics. It has a trajectory we decide for it. It follows through. It targets itself, homes itself, and cuts off. It’s only copper wire, storage batteries, and electricity.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, (Character: Captain Beatty), Part One, Page 23
“What, the Hound?” The Captain studied his cards. “Come off it. It doesn’t like or dislike. It just `functions.’ It’s like a lesson in ballistics. It has a trajectory we decide for it. It follows through. It targets itself, homes itself, and cuts off. It’s only copper wire, storage batteries, and electricity.”
Montag swallowed. “Its calculators can be set to any combination, so many amino acids, so much sulphur, so much butterfat and alkaline.
Right?”
“We all know that.”
“All of those chemical balances and percentages on all of us here in the house are recorded in the master file downstairs. It would be easy for someone to set up a partial combination on the Hound’s ‘memory,’ a touch of amino acids, perhaps. That would account for what the animal did just now. Reacted toward me.”
“Hell,” said the Captain.
“Irritated, but not completely angry. Just enough ‘memory’ set up in it by someone so it growled when I touched it.”
“Who would do a thing like that?.” asked the Captain. “You haven’t any enemies here, Guy.”
“None that I know of.”
“We’ll have the Hound checked by our technicians tomorrow.
“This isn’t the first time it’s threatened me,” said Montag. “Last month it happened twice.”
“We’ll fix it up. Don’t worry”But Montag did not move and only stood thinking of the ventilator grille in the hall at home and what lay hidden behind the grille. If someone here in the firehouse knew about the ventilator then mightn’t they “tell” the Hound . . . ?
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, (Characters: Captain Beatty and Guy Montag), Part One, Page 24
“I was just figuring,” said Montag, “what does the Hound think about down there nights? Is it coming alive on us, really? It makes me cold.”
“It doesn’t think anything we don’t want it to think.”
“That’s sad,” said Montag, quietly, “because all we put into it is hunting and finding and killing. What a shame if that’s all it can ever know.”‘
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, (Characters: Captain Beatty and Guy Montag), Part One, Page 25
“Montag slid down the pole like a man in a dream. The Mechanical Hound leapt up in its kennel, its eyes all green flame.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, (Character: Montag as the narrator), Part One, Page 32
“The Mechanical Hound slept but did not sleep, lived but did not live in its gently humming, gently vibrating, softly illuminated kennel back in a dark corner of the firehouse … Light flickered on bits of ruby glass and on sensitive capillary hairs in the nylon-brushed nostrils of the creature that quivered gently, gently, gently, its eight legs spidered under it on rubber-padded paws.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, (Character: Montag as the narrator), Part One, Page 32
“He turned and the Mechanical Hound was there. It was half across the lawn, coming from the shadows, moving with such drifting ease that it was like a single solid cloud of black-grey
smoke blown at him in silence. It made a single last leap into the air, coming down at Montag from a good three feet over his head, its spidered legs reaching, the procaine needle snapping out its single angry tooth. Montag caught it with a bloom of fire, a single wondrous blossom that curled in petals of yellow and blue and orange about the metal dog, clad it in a new covering as it slammed into Montag and threw him ten feet back against the bole of a tree, taking the flame-gun with him. He felt it scrabble and seize his leg and stab the needle in for a moment before the fire snapped the Hound up in the air, burst its metal bones at the joints, and blew out its interior in the single flushing of red colour like a skyrocket fastened to the street. Montag lay watching the dead-alive thing fiddle the air and die. Even now it seemed to want to get back at him and finish the injection which was now working through the flesh of his leg. He felt all of the mingled relief and horror at having pulled back only in time to have just his knee slammed by the fender of a car hurtling by at ninety miles an hour.”~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, (Character: Montag as the narrator), Part Three, Page 114
“–Mechanical Hound never fails. Never since its first use in tracking quarry has this incredible invention made a mistake. Tonight, this network is proud to have the opportunity to follow the Hound by camera helicopter as it starts on its way to the target–”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, (Character: Montag as the narrator), Part Three, Pages 126, 27
“Montag ran.
He could feel the Hound, like autumn, come cold and dry and swift, like a wind that didn’t stir grass, that didn’t jar windows or disturb leaf-shadows on the white sidewalks as it passed. The Hound did not touch the world. It carried its silence with it, so you could feel the silence building up a pressure behind you all across town. Montag felt the pressure rising, and ran.
He stopped for breath, on his way to the river, to peer through dimly lit windows of wakened houses, and saw the silhouettes of people inside watching their parlor walls and there on the walls the Mechanical Hound, a breath of neon vapor, spidered along, here and gone, here and gone! Now at Elm Terrace, Lincoln, Oak, Park, and up the alley toward Faber’s house.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, (Character: Montag as the narrator), Part Three, Page 130
“On the parlor wall, Faber’s house, with its sprinkler system pulsing in the night air.
The Hound paused, quivering.
No! Montag held to the window sill. This way! Here!
The procaine needle flicked out and in, out and in. A single clear drop of the stuff of dreams fell from the needle as it vanished in the Hound’s muzzle. Montag held his breath, like a doubled fist, in his chest.
The Mechanical Hound turned and plunged away from Faber’s house down the alley again.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, (Character: Montag as the narrator), Part Three, Page 131
“On the screen, a man turned a corner. The Mechanical Hound rushed forward into the viewer, suddenly. The helicopter light shot down a dozen brilliant pillars that built a cage all about the man.
A voice cried, “There’s Montag! The search is done!”
The innocent man stood bewildered, a cigarette burning in his hand. He stared at the Hound, not knowing what it was. He probably never knew. He glanced up at the sky and the wailing sirens. The cameras rushed down. The Hound leapt up into the air with a rhythm and a sense of timing that was incredibly beautiful. Its needle shot out. It was suspended for a moment in their gaze, as if to give the vast audience time to appreciate everything, the raw look of the victim’s face, the empty street, the steel animal a bullet nosing the target.
“Montag, don’t move!” said a voice from the sky.
The camera fell upon the victim, even as did the Hound. Both reached him simultaneously. The victim was seized by Hound and camera in a great spidering, clenching grip. He screamed. He screamed.
He screamed!
Blackout.
Silence.
Darkness.
Montag cried out in the silence and turned away.
Silence.And then, after a time of the men sitting around the fire, their faces expressionless, an announcer on the dark screen said, “The search is over, Montag is dead; a crime against society has been avenged.”
~Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, (Character: Montag as the narrator), Part Three, Page 142
What Is The Mechanical Hound?
The Mechanical Hound is a robotic dog created and programmed by the government to track, hunt, and kill individuals who disobey the laws of the land.
It has eight insect-like legs, ruby glass eyes, and a needle filled with either morphine or procaine stored in its snout. This needle is used to incapacitate a target, and the hound has a heightened sense of smell that can detect chemical components of up to 10,000 people.
The Hound is a menacing creature to Montag and even growls at him when he passes. It is an evil machine and a convenient tool for the government to keep its citizens in line.
How does a mechanical hound work?
The Mechanical Hound is a robotic dog-like machine created to assist the fire department in catching criminals. It is made of copper wire, storage batteries, and blue electricity. Its snout has a hollow steel needle to inject its victims with morphine or procaine.
The Hound is programmed to detect its targets by smelling them with sensitive capillary hairs in its Nylon-brushed nostrils.
Once it detects its target, it moves quickly toward it on its eight rubber-padded feet. Finally, it injects its target with a lethal dose of drugs, rendering them unconscious or dead within three seconds.
The mechanical hound in Fahrenheit 451 description
The Mechanical Hound in Fahrenheit 451 symbolizes the government’s dehumanized and oppressive nature in the novel. It is a robotic canine that punishes those against societal norms, such as reading and hoarding books, by injecting them with lethal toxins.
The Hound has advanced technology that allows it to store “so many amino acids, so much sulphur, so much butterfat and alkaline,” which makes it capable of tracking up to ten thousand victims to their ultimate doom.
Montag has a few encounters with the Mechanical Hound throughout the book and is always struck by its cold, unrelenting nature.
Ultimately, the Mechanical Hound is a reminder of the oppressive, totalitarian government that its citizens live under.
What is the purpose of the mechanical hound in Fahrenheit 451?
The purpose of this robotic canine is to punish those who go against modern ideals, such as the reading and hoarding of books, by injecting them with lethal toxins.
The Hound represents the government’s relentless pursuit and execution of nonconformists and displays their brutality and use of technology to control the population.
It’s a constant reminder of the dangers of an oppressive, homogenized society and a warning of what could happen if individualism is not embraced or valued.
What does the mechanical hound symbolize?
The Mechanical Hound symbolizes the oppressive power of technology and government in the dystopian society described in Fahrenheit 451.
It is a robotic animal programmed by the government to enforce its laws and punish those who do not follow them. The hound represents a great threat to freedom of thought and expression as it hunts down and destroys anyone who dares to think or act differently than the state.
It symbolized the power of technology to control and manipulate citizens in a totalitarian state and the fear of being tracked down and punished that comes with it.