At this moment in the book, readers have just experienced
a scene change from Montag having a talk with Clarisse which made him more aware of and
happy about the world around him. Then the scene shifts to Montag at work, which could
have been just a few moments later. Before Montag greets the dog, Bradbury
narrates:
He went out to look at the
city and the clouds had cleared away completely, and he lit a cigarette and came back to
bend down and look at the Hound. It 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.
This is a parodoxical statement
because it alludes to the power of the venom within the Mechanical Hound, but then make
the assumption that the evil can acutally be extracted from the Hound with
sleep.
The turning point of this entire situation for
Montag and his development come with the idea that he actually demonstrated human
emotion and thought. He considered the dog's abilities, and he actually thought kindly
of the dog for a moment. This is Clarisse's
influence.
Ironically, the dog is able to read human
thought and recognize change. The dog snapping at Montag is the evidence that Montag is
open to being enlightened about what is wrong with his dystopian
society.
Hope that helps.
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