Jia Pan

Christina Phillips

English 101-022

February 13, 2016

Analysis of "August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains"

In "August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains", civilization has annihilated itself and the rest of humanity with it through the use of man-made technological advances and its inventory including the infamous nuclear weapons. In this post apocalyptic time, the only remaining thing that validates that civilization and man once roamed the planet was a smart house, a remnant of past. This smart house is left standing alone due to nuclear fallout caused annihilating both the city and its surrounding and humanity. Although vacant of its tenants, the house continues to perform this cycle of chores constantly to take care of its absent residence, which almost seems like a simulation of what life was life when life roamed in those walls. Serving breakfast, cleaning the floors, watering the garden, and protecting the family of intruders, to a family that is no longer there. Ultimately, after the constant cycle of chores the house falls under the destruction of a fire that the smart house could not combat leading it to its own downfall, and soon the surrounding of the house and the house itself became one. Using symbolism, irony, and imagery the author argues that the technological advances that once benefitted humanity also soon leads to the destruction of both Man and humanity, leaving Nature to prosper over the remnants of mankind.  

In the story, the downfall of Man was not only occurring after the annihilation of the city and the house falling into the destruction of the fire, but also during Man's time when it was amidst with its own creations. The house performed both menial and adept tasks including cooking, the constant reminders of events, chores that included cleaning dishes and etc. This smart house though aided the families who owned one and thus gave more time to their own personal tasks, eliminated not only the need to do anything, but it also eliminated the uniqueness of a family could be. Thus, the house symbolizes for the destruction of humanity, however at a smaller scale. For example, taking away the menial things including breakfast, an element of a household that brings families together at the table, " ...  the stove  ...  ejected from its warm interior eight pieces of perfectly browned toast, eight eggs sunny side up, sixteen slices of bacon, two coffees and two cool glasses of milk", the chores of cleaning left to robotic mice, " ...  kneading the rug nap, sucking gently at hidden dust" (Bradbury). Tasks that once made a house, and living residence, home. However, the "home" is now no more of a building that eliminates the requirement of interaction, giving it a cold feeling, an "empty house" with or without the residence of this house. What further indicate this abandonment of humanity were the tasks performed by the house. The house, and like all robotics imbedded into the programming of the house, constantly performed under the inescapable cycle of tasks, always on a set schedule, which gave insight to how the family lived; constant monotonous cycle with no true escape, which eliminated the uniqueness of individuals and the family. " ...  Seven o'clock, time to get up ...  Nine-fifteen ...  time to clean ...  Two thirty-five. Playing cards fluttered onto pads ... "(Bradbury). Another was the use of the robotic mice and how its task was to clean the house, and later afterwards, the dog.  Animals often times can be synonymous as the works of nature, creatures that often worked outside the laws of man or even free of man, however in this case the dog represented the product of man. The dog "once huge and fleshy" was now undernourished. This idea of the dog once being fleshy to being skeletal can symbolize the dependence of the dog on humanity to feed him since the dog itself was unable to care for itself. The idea of elimination of self-reliance similar to how man relied on its technological advances. The constant reliance on the house to serve its meals, the dogs dies incapable of obtaining the food and only capable of capturing the aroma of the food. Like Nature, the dog's downfall was of Man. After death, the mice, again, Man's creation, with no humanity, no thought, no emotion however contrary to that they were capable of being angry, and like the house, empty and cold, took the dog to incinerator to burn. 

Another symbolization was the aftermath of Man's creation and the destruction of their surroundings because of it. One example includes the garbage disposer in the sink of the house. This garbage disposer symbolizes the benefits of what life was like to live in the smart house, however, this creation was also symbolized as a contaminator of nature, " ...  eggs were shriveled and toast was like stone. An aluminum wedge scraped them into the sink ...  digested and flushed away to the distant sea"(Bradbury). Though benefits man, this technological feat is destroying Nature as it pollutes the habitats of other creatures. Another symbol in the story was the silhouette of the family outside on the charred west face of the house, "save for five places"(Bradbury). Here the silhouettes represent the aftermath of nuclear fallout, which resulted in a nuclear shadow. The annihilation of this family demonstrates the destruction of what man can bring upon it self and society as a whole. "The five sports of paint -- the man, woman, the children, the ball -- remained." "At night the ruined city gave off a radioactive glow which could be seen for miles"(Bradbury). An area uninhabitable by man an effect caused by nuclear fallout, however plants and other animals around continue to thrive, a sign of Nature prospering over the destruction of man. This can also be reference back to the use of the atomic bombs that was set off in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which also produced a similar scenario and environment set in the short story. Ultimately, these symbols within the story served not only as an imagery to portray the results of a nuclear fallout, but also as a warning from Ray Bradbury to take another path of technological advances that will not result the people of other countries to meet the same fate as the Japanese did in WWII. 

Another way for Ray Bradbury to demonstrate that technological advances of man will not only impact humanity, but also nature was through irony. The most discernible irony was employing of the poem "There will Come Soft Rains". The poem tells of an era of which "mankind perished utterly", and that Nature and the animals of Nature will not care for the extinction of humans, but merely flourish and thrive as if they never existed. The poem, however, portrays a scenario more utopian-like than dejected as one would think. In comparison to the poem and the reality of the surroundings of the house, the nature of the aftermath that has been impaired because of Man's gluttony for power and domination, that nature cannot and will no longer thrive as a utopia predicted in the poem. Although impaired, Nature is slowly prospering over the ruins of man. This is seen in the scene when the tree is knocked down into the kitchen, which ultimately causes the smart house to become consumed by fire. The dog is no longer a product of nature as it became accustomed and relied on the smart house to feed it. " ...  now gone to bine and covered with sores" (Bradbury). " ... once huge and fleshy", unlike the dog, Nature is stripping the remnants of life that man's creation and any of associations of it, has. No longer a place for man, and like the poem suggest, Nature will flourish with the extinction of man. 

Bradbury was also capable of portraying the outcome of the technological creations that happened to benefit the world, however would later destroy it. "And the rain tapped in the empty house, echoing"(Bradbury). This imagery develops a sense of eeriness, a mood of loneliness. "At night the ruined city gave off a radioactive glow which could be seen for miles", provides an image of what the result was, however Bradbury was also capable of portraying of what the advances were capable of on a smaller scale, which includes the family of four; " ...  their images burned on wood in one titanic instant, a small boy  ...  image of a thrown ball ...  a ball which never came down". It stimulates a sort of hollow tone for the narrator, however resigned and not objective, but also in a tone of apathy, no care, just left emotionless. Then came the house catching on fire, "The fire crackled up the stairs. It fed upon Picassos and Matisses in the upper halls, like delicacies  ... ", " ... the solvent spread on the linoleum, licking, eating, under the kitchen floor"(Bradbury). Then personifying the house, like if it were human, "The house shuddered, oak bone on bone ...  its nerves, its wires revealed as if a surgeon had torn the skin off"(Bradbury). This suggestion of personifying the house as human symbolizes that man is ultimately synonymous with technology. The destruction of technology and its remains also mirrors the destruction of man itself and that Nature will be the one to cause this effect and the last one standing prospering over the parasite of what we call technology.

Bradbury's short story tells the story of how Man's creation, the smart house, soon becomes subject to it's own demise because it was Man who brought it in this world, and it was Man who created the very thing that destroyed humanity and Nature itself. The irony of the poem of a world, a utopia, precipitated because of the inexistence of humans, is laughable as the reality of the world that Bradbury portrays is that it no longer exists if the world doesn't cease its ways and change its course towards a better future. 

Work Cited

Bradbury, Ray. "August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains by Bradbury.pdf." The Martian Chronicles. Toronto: Bantam, 1985. 166-72. Google Docs. Web. 13 Feb. 2016.
