Beau Largent

9 February 2016

Phillips

ENGL 101-022

The Working House

We as a society are constantly trying to better ourselves and make life easier through technological innovation. Often, our efforts benefit us, but sometimes we need to ask, "Is this too much?" There is a fine line between making the world a better place and harming the world we live in. A highly charged debate is happening at this very moment. Are we actually progressing? And, if so, at what cost?

Our technological advancements have improved our lives in many ways. Travel is easier. Machines can do things we'd never thought of. We have better access to information, friends and relatives around the world. But we also have pollution and climate change, food with little nutritional value, people in poverty, and areas not safe to go to. In Ray Bradbury's short essay "August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains," first published in 1950, he questions our technology, our progress, and presents a horrific picture of a future he believes could happen if we can't figure out how to control our technology, manage our behavior and environment, and live with the rest of our planet's inhabitants.  

Bradbury opens with no introduction, no background information or other explanation, just a picture of a fully self-efficient, working house in a desolate town, which used to be Allendale, CA. The fully automated house is doing its daily chores of waking the family, making breakfast, announcing the time and providing other potentially useful information, as robot mice scurry about devouring the dust. This could be any house, anywhere, at any time, but as we go outside, it's clear what's happened. The town has been wiped out by a nuclear explosion. We see rubble and devastation where there was once a town, and know that the inhabitants of our house are gone. But Bradbury doesn't just tell us that a bomb has exploded. He uses imagery to tell us what's happened to the people. All that's left are "silhouettes" on an outside wall, "images burned on wood."

As Bradbury leads us through the house, we see how close to working perfection it is. Through the mechanically timed and orderly operations, we see how it works on the same schedule everyday, starting with waking the house up by projecting a voice throughout the house," Tick-tock, seven o'clock, time to get up, time to get up, seven o'clock!" This voice continues to project new announcements and updates through the house throughout the day. Bradbury uses this technique repeatedly creating a robotic feel, allowing the reader to really feel and experience a lack of humanity versus the mechanical desolation in the house. Initially, the repeating schedule gives the reader a sense of comfort, as though the house has everything under control. It seems as if the house could actually protect itself and continue on and on into eternity without interruption or complication, until Bradbury points out the obvious problem, "The gods had gone away." 

In reality, even though the house seems capable of doing everything necessary, we know that it can only survive and continue to function until it runs out of water, power, supplies or some other disaster happens. It's the latter, caused by the house's nemesis, nature, that forces the house into a battle with fire, only to lose hopelessly. Again, the use of repetition sets up the demise of the house, with every update being announced until, " At ten o'clock the house began to die." (Bradbury 3). Just as the house's pattern of repetition must clearly end, nature comes into play as the wind blows a tree branch through a window leading to a fire that cannot be stopped even by the 'self-efficient' house. In conclusion, the repetition reinforces the theme that nature and technology do not always mix the way humans intend.  

Imagery plays a large factor in creating the working house for the reader. It allows us to see the way the inhabitants of the house perished, "their images burned on wood in one titanic instant, a small boy, hands flung into the air" (Bradbury 1). Bradbury's imagery highlights the picture painted on the west side of the house by the nuclear explosion. It depicts the entire family's instant death, etched into the charred wood. This picture of instant death takes us back to the theme of crossing the line, how nuclear power, or technology can ruin a population if not used carefully and thoughtfully.  Too often, technology is just about convenience or money, with little or no thought about possible negative results.  

Throughout the day, the house continues its work. As evening comes, it selects a poem for the mother who can't choose for herself any longer. Bradbury's story is titled after the poem, written by Sara Teasdale and it's no accident that this poem was chosen. Over and over, it repeats exactly what the author is telling us, "And no one will know of the war, not one will care at last when it is done." Soon after the house has finished the poem, nature takes over.  

Here again, we see Bradbury using imagery to express the chaos during the fire, "The house lights flashed, water pumps shot water ... the solvent spread on the linoleum ... the voices took it up in chorus" (Bradbury 3). These images allow him to show how quickly nature had taken the house, and how the house could do nothing about it. The chaotic state displayed during the fire is the final and most tragic effect of the catastrophic nuclear explosion, a man-made event that results in nature crumbling our creations. Bradbury's effective use of imagery lets us really see and feel the house as it lives and works, and he uses it again to also illustrate the house's quick expiration.

The personification Bradbury uses makes the reader feel more connected to the house and nature, giving them a more life-like state. It's sink, "digested" leftover food and the house had, "drawn shades in an old maidenly preoccupation with self-protection which bordered on a mechanical paranoia." (Bradbury 1-2). His personification allows the reader to understand and actually feel the house more than if Bradbury had just explained that the house simply closed its windows for protection. Instead, he gives the house this human sense of paranoia. He wants us to feel as though this was our creation and we had stopped taking care of it. He also gives the cleaning mice emotions, as they angrily clean up the mud the dog has tracked through the house. 

Bradbury uses the same personification technique well when he describes the fire's assault on the house, "the house shuddered, oak bone on bone, its bared skeleton cringing from the heat, its wire, its nerves revealed as if a surgeon had torn the skin off to let the red veins and capillaries quiver" (Bradbury 4). This allows the reader to see the house as body being tortured by nature. Nature, the fire, keeps attacking the house making it shudder and cringe, just as human would in that situation. And Bradbury also gives the fire human behaviors, as the, "the fire backed off" and human senses, as the, "fire was clever" (Bradbury 4). His excellent use of personification keeps the reader drawn into the battle between the two forces, nature versus man and his creations. 

He effectively uses repetition, sharp imagery and personification to make it clear that nature has the advantage and will always win. He seems to be saying that mankind and all his incredible creations are just passing through and that humans are in real danger of ruining our creations and ourselves through our own ignorance and self-destructive behavior. Written not long after the horrors of WWII, the nuclear devastation in Japan and the beginning of the Cold War, his point of view seems more than reasonable. 

His vision is a warning and contains a timely and important lesson, as we must learn to balance the technological gains we are making and the damage it is doing to our earth, because today we have even more choices and more ways to destroy ourselves. In addition to a nuclear disaster, we have potential terrorist acts, dirty bombs, chemical and viral weapons, or attacks on our energy grid that could destroy our ability to function as a society. The author's house is our creation and the nuclear explosion is just one example of many possible negative outcomes of uncontrolled technology. This house was so advanced and efficient that it might have gone on forever if nature hadn't decided to intervene. Bradbury's showing us that it's nature's way of warning us we are going too fast. Innovating at such a pace without moral discipline, and responsible and clear purpose, we may find one day that we've ruined everything we've been striving for, and disappear, just as the people of Allendale.  
