What are examples of auditory, gustatory, and tactile imagery in part one of Fahrenheit 451?

Auditory, gustatory, and tactile imagery has to do with the human senses of sound, taste, and touch. In part one of Fahrenheit 451, there are many examples of these images. First, examples of auditory imagery can be found in the smallest of details as Montag burns books or listens to cues around him. For instance, the sound of burning books is compared to birds' wings and described as "the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch" (3). Another auditory image is found when Montag describes Clarisse:

"Her dress was white and it whispered. He almost thought he heard the motion of her hands as she walked, and the infinitely small sound now, the white stir of her face turning when she discovered she was a moment away from a man who stood in the middle of the pavement waiting" (5).

The words "white stir" seem to connect to what we also call "white noise." White noise is the sound one hears when a TV screen turns to snow and nothing is being broadcast. Bradbury also mixes auditory and visual images to create an interesting scene that describes the quiet movements of the girl and her clothing.

Next, examples of gustatory imagery (the sense of taste) are found when machines are brought in by medical personnel to pump Mildred's stomach. The machines are compared to a black cobra that eats up all of the toxins from her stomach and digests it in a huge, belly-like container. The Gustatory images are as follows:

"It drank up the green matter the flowed to the top in a slow boil. Did it drink of the darkness? Did it suck out all the poisons accumulated with the years? It fed in silence with an occasional sound of inner suffocation and blind searching" (14).

Even though the verbs used above don't identify a particular taste, they do show the action of tasting, eating, and drinking, which are all gustatory actions. One can easily imagine that food this machine is eating would not be very tasty in any way.

Finally, the tactile images, which refer to the sense of touch, can be found in many different passages throughout the story. Here is one example as Montag enters his bedroom after his shift ends and where his wife is sleeping:

"It was like coming into a cold marbled room of a mausoleum after the moon has set" (11).

Another example of a tactile image is when Montag's foot accidentally kicks his wife's sleeping pill bottle in the middle of the night:

"An instant before his foot hit the object on the floor he knew he would hit such an object. It was not unlike the feeling he had experienced before turning the corner and almost knocking the girl down. His foot, sending vibrations ahead, received back echoes of the small barrier across its path even as the foot swung. His foot kicked. The object gave a dull clink and slid off in darkness" (13).

In the passage above, the combining of auditory with tactile imagery helps to solidify the objective of the darkened scene as Montag enters his bedroom at night. Visual images are thus limited because the character does not have light as a reference; therefore, sounds and the sense of touch are needed to decipher what is going on around him in the darkness.