The Martian Chronicles (1950)

After the successful publication of Dark Carnival (1947), Bradbury’s editor suggested working on a longer narrative form. Immediately Bradbury began compiling a series of stories he had previously written about the Earth’s colonization of Mars. Adding connecting events and chapters, he published The Martian Chronicles in novel form. With these stories, the author joined his dual visions of the idyllic American past, here dubbed “Green Bluff,” and the last frontier for humanity, alien worlds. Written as a series of journal entries with dates heading each chapter, Martian Chronicles focuses on action: the colonization of a planet.

Thus, the characters are less developed; the sporadic protagonists rarely extend into later chapters. Episodic in form (having a series of incidents that can stand alone but are loosely connected by characters or a setting), the novel contains gaps in time and space between the chapters the reader must fill. The theme of conquest helps unify the work, connecting the plotlines, driving the action of the novel, and relating its plot to historical realities: the history of Western colonization of Asian, African, and American countries.

After a short chapter depicting a rocket launch that catalyzes Ohio’s transition from winter into summer, Bradbury tells the first few stories from the Martian creatures’ point of view. Telepathic, they know that the humans’ arrival is imminent. After a series of unsuccessful missions, the humans dominate the planet. They unintentionally contaminate Mars, killing off the Martian population. Then an atomic war breaks out on Earth, resulting in the rapid exodus of the Martian colonists back to Earth, fearing for their friends, family, and way of life. The reader is left with a deserted Mars and an ending that marks a new beginning: a group of Earthlings who witness the final days of the war that destroys Earth.

With this initial novel Bradbury appealed to the larger literary community and garnered respect—a feat not often accomplished by pulp sci-fi writers. He also fascinated his core science fiction audience, but the science fiction elements, for example, the Martian world’s physical imagery, remain on the periphery, serving metaphorical functions. Concentrating on the telepathy of the aliens and their similarities to and differences from human interpersonal relations, Bradbury conveys an earthly message, examining how the various individual interactions affect and shape the larger communities in which they operate.

In the second chapter, the reader first meets a Martian protagonist: Ylla, a married Martian woman, the first to sense the imminent arrival of Earthlings. Through a telepathic dream state she anticipates the arrival of human explorers. Her dreams are flooded with images of Nathaniel York, one of the two-man crew that is the first to explore the planet.

The episode ends as Ylla’s husband, out of either anxiety or jealousy (it is unclear), shoots the men on a “hunting” expedition. The following chapters expand on this telepathic phenomenon, with increasingly complicated ends to the successive human visits. The reader experiences the confusion brought about by these strange encounters from both sides of the story, empathizing with the Martian and human communities and giving both the Martian and human characters a voice. While the Martians are relegated to ghosts early in the narrative, they continue to haunt the story as it progresses.

The fourth attempt is successful, in part because the Martians were infected with chicken pox, which was introduced by the previous human expeditions. This event mirrors the genocide that occurred in the Americas when millions of indigenous peoples died in the first few years of European exploration. The reaction here is one of surprise but not horror, and, in the end, it comes in handy: “Chances are a few of the Martians, if they were smart, escaped to the mountains. But there aren’t enough . . . to be a native problem.” The genocide does not taint the event for the crew, and in the following chapter the settlers begin to arrive.

Before this happens, however, Bradbury provides a word of caution through Jeff Spender, an archaeologist who knows the annihilation of culture and history about to take place. Of all the crew members only he bemoans the death of the Martian race. Through him, Bradbury explores the ethical responsibility of explorers. Spender stands in opposition to the crew, who get drunk and arrogantly name locations after themselves. This act of naming becomes the symbolic vehicle for the destruction of the Martian culture: “The names we give to the canals and mountains and cities will fall like so much water on the back of a mallard. No matter how we touch Mars, we’ll never touch it. And then we’ll get mad at it, and you know what we’ll do? We’ll rip it up, rip the skin off, and change it to fit ourselves.” The moral compass or conscience of the story, Spender intends well; however, his reaction to the colonization process also has its roots in American history; he is the well-intentioned frontiersman who loses himself in the alien culture—he defends the extinct Martian species.

Bradbury reexamines the concept of the pioneer spirit in The Martian Chronicles, and he portrays for his readers a reckless co-opting of land already inhabited by creatures with thoughts and feelings. The novel challenges the idea that the power or ability possessed by a particular community gives moral permission to that community to act on in order to achieve a self-serving end. He proposes that “science ran too far ahead of us too quickly and people got lost in the mechanical wilderness . . . emphasizing machines instead of how to run the machines.”

Bradbury presents his readers with a hypothetical colonization, one that could be a natural extension of human nomadic exploration, which is at the foundation of American history—if only we were technologically capable. Written in the aftermath of World War II and the atomic bomb and with a prescient awareness of the increasingly imperialistic tendencies of the ever-growing United States and Russian military forces and the increasing threat of nuclear annihilation, Martian Chronicles carries a cautionary warning; however, Bradbury does not leave his characters without hope. When the Earth succumbs to a worldwide atomic war, the humans who make their way to Mars have a different intention than the previous explorers who fashioned the world into a satellite planet of Earth.

The father of the initial family to return to the deserted planet Mars ritualistically burns old maps and other documents associated with Earth, explaining to his children, “I’m burning a way of life.” Bradbury first introduces a Martian, asking the readers to empathize with a creature about to be destroyed by an invading species. We feel regret for the rapid and untimely end of the Martian species. As the book’s action parallels the history of Western conquest and mirrors many events in our shared cultural past, it allows us to step outside our collective experience and see it as distinct from our own history. In this way we are able to view it more objectively and critically.

For Discussion or Writing:
1. Bradbury’s novel of the future makes a comment on the American past. Consult a scholarly history source to get background information on the colonization of America. What parallels do you see between the colonization in The Martian Chronicles and the United States’ own history as pioneers of the New World? Compare and contrast the Martians’ initial reaction to the Earthlings to that of Native Americans to the first Europeans to reach North America.

2. The chapter “Way in the Middle of the Air,” in which a southern black community builds their own rockets and leaves Earth, continues to generate controversy. As did the Marcus Garvey back to Africa movement of the 1920s, Bradbury presents an image of African Americans emigrating from the United States. Discuss the significance of The Martian Chronicles chapter, in reference to the cultural context in which it was written. What does the inclusion of such an event add to Bradbury’s criticism of the American past?

3. In the chapter “And the Moon Be Still as Bright,” both Captain Wilder and the archaeologist Jeff Spender approach Mars with a level of respect that exceeds that of the general crew. Compare and contrast their reactions. Are Spender’s actions more admirable? Why or why not? Consider Wilder’s role at the end of the book in “The Long Years” as well. As one of the few characters appearing in more than one episode, what does he symbolize?

4. Even in his early years, Bradbury’s brand of science fiction stood apart from the larger sci-fi community. Compare and contrast this work with the Isaac Asimov’s I Robot, also published in 1950. Would you describe The Martian Chronicles as a work of science fiction? Why, or why not?

“There Will Come Soft Rains” (1950)

“There Will Come Soft Rains,” the penultimate chapter of The Martian Chronicles, shifts momentarily from the deserted Mars to an empty house on the dying planet Earth. This short episode takes place in an Allendale, California, house after a nuclear holocaust has ended earthly life. The chapter opens with the house’s morning alarm at seven o’clock, “Time to get up, time to get up!” Fully automated and designed to aid in the everyday needs of its inhabitants, the house cooks breakfast, reminds its absent family of important appointments, and cautions that today is a day for raincoats.

As the house continues its daily rituals, the omniscient, allknowing narrator explains that this is the only house left standing in a “ruined city” that glows green with radiation that can be seen for miles at night. Later, as the house winds down the day, creating a warm atmosphere for after-dinner repose, the voice from behind the walls recites a poem, a favorite of Mrs. McClellen, the home’s former mistress.

The poem, “There Will Come Soft Rains,” describes a time when humankind has perished, “And Spring herself, when woke at dawn / Would scarcely know that we were gone.” Immediately after this a tree bough falls on the house, causes a fire, and, in a rushing inferno of prose and mechanical screams, the house falls; a lone voice from the sole surviving wall announces, “Today is August 5, 2026, today is August 5, 2026, today is. . . .”

This episode encapsulates the author’s theme of the dangers of unrestrained technology. The poem that centers the chapter speaks of animals in harmony with the thriving natural world. This natural world sharply contrasts with the world outside the house, which, at present, lies in ruins. The poem, however, also speaks of a future in which the world, impervious to the violence enacted by human beings, will heal itself. In this sentiment Bradbury provides hope that even in this worst-case scenario of utter destruction, there is always a rebirth. The chapter provides a stark portrait of humanity, a cumbersome and unnecessary intrusion on an otherwise peaceful, self-sustaining planet. The poem describes the triumph of nature in the wake of humanity’s folly. Though the Earth’s most sophisticated creatures have succeeded in destroying themselves, the planet will continue to produce life.

The image of the house demonstrates Bradbury’s technique of blending the fantastic with the ordinary. While the house is a futuristic design, it maintains a traditional, all-American atmosphere consistent with Bradbury’s nostalgic use of his midwestern past. The kitchen makes eggs and pancakes; the living room provides a warm fireplace to sit by, a perfectly lit cigar to enjoy after dinner, and a Sara Teasdale poem popular during Bradbury’s childhood. Ironically, this obsession with technology recreates an idealized past and creates more leisure time, but it also has a high price: the abandonment of ethical thinking and moral decision making.

The only sentient character in the chapter, the family dog, suffering from the effects of nuclear radiation, makes his way home to die. As he seeks out his masters, he becomes both follower and victim of the human design: the only example of life on Earth, a painful reminder of the widespread suffering of the poisoned planet. A symbol for faithfulness, “man’s best friend,” he goes back home to be saved by the humans but is only tormented by locked doors and the smell of food. Here the narrator shows how humanity’s destructiveness extends to other species, as it already has to the Martians.

Bradbury equates the rhythms of the house to religious rituals of devotees whose “gods had gone away.” Robotic mice emerge from the walls to clean the house, and the kitchen serves up its daily offerings on schedule. Ironically, the human beings, gods of their own technological creations, are now a virtually extinct species. Machines designed to protect and ease human life bring about its end; the house stands like an empty shrine to a failed system. The silhouettes in the front yard are ghostly images on an otherwise blackened wall, images of the absent gods. Their presence deepens the image of reverence created by the house’s lonely routine. The silhouettes depicting the family in the yard are reminiscent of the silhouettes found in Hiroshima after the atomic bomb. The use of the image is haunting and, written only a few years after the bombs had been dropped, all too real.

The poem’s story tells of a rebirth, but the story in which it is framed is an ending. Immediately after the last refrain, “the house began to die,” the narrator describes this death in emotional language. The house screams an alarm, “fire, fire, fire,” in an effort to alert sleeping humans; however, it reads like the desperate screams of a trapped victim. Image after image supports the atmosphere of a violent and anguished death. The machine itself, representing the greater technological vehicle that consumed humanity, is the final victim.

For Discussion or Writing:
1. Personification is a form of metaphor by which an author applies human characteristics to nonhuman things. Bradbury specifically applies human emotions to various attendants of the mechanized house. Identify examples of personification within the text and discuss how they affect the reading of the story.

2. Why is “There Will Come Soft Rains” central to the larger work? Compare and contrast this chapter with the images of Mars after the Martians have all succumbed to chicken pox.

3. The image of the dog desperately looking for his humans and trying to get at the food in the kitchen is vivid and painful to read. What is the function of this scene in the story? Discuss your impression of his homecoming and subsequent death.

4. Compare and contrast the images provided by the poem with the images of the world outside the house as told by the narrator.

5. Much of the chapter deals with the passing of time, which is chronicled by the house as it meets its end. What is time’s function in the chapter? What does the strict routine in the house say about the family who lived there? Does this support Bradbury’s critique of technology throughout the novel? Why or why not?