Montag has been going to sleep when he realizes that his wife, Mildred, has taken an overdose of sleeping tablets. These three sentences describe his reaction:

As he stood there the sky over the house screamed. There was a tremendous ripping sound as if two giant hands had torn ten thousand miles of black linen down the seam. Montag was cut in half.

The first sentence presents a striking auditory image. Although there is no actual sound, the tumult inside Montag's head makes it feel as though the entire sky is screaming. This is also an instance of what John Ruskin called "the pathetic fallacy": the attribution of an emotional reaction to inanimate objects. There is another auditory image in the second sentence, immediately followed by a visual simile. The screaming has changed to a "ripping." The most striking aspect of both images is their massive scale. The whole, endless sky screamed. Giant hands tore ten thousand miles of linen (black linen, which presumably makes no difference to the sound but intensifies the visual image). This conveys the depth of Montag's consternation. Finally, he is torn in half. This is clearly meant figuratively, but the simple, blunt statement coming after the vivid images is immensely powerful.

The extremity of Montag's reaction here is perhaps stressed so strongly because he does not love Mildred or even like her. Still, the thought of her death has an effect that both pulverizes and galvanizes him.