Fahrenheit 451

#5 im doing discussion questions

when montag and faber hatch a plan to attack firehouses faber declares "the salamander devours his tale"what does he mean by this analogy?

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Faber is expressing his approval of Montag’s plan to frame his fellow firemen and bring about the collapse of the regime from within. The salamander represents the firemen: resistant heat. Montag's plan to plant books and burn the firemen houses is like Salamander eating his own tail,

"'[p]lant the books, turn in an alarm, and see the firemen's houses burn, is that what you mean?. . . It's an insidious plan, if I do say so myself.’ Faber glanced nervously at his bedroom door. ‘To see the firehouses burn across the land, destroyed as hotbeds of treason. The salamander devours his tail! Ho, God!’"