Techniques Tracked:
-Time as a structural and thematic device
-Symbolism through setting, characterization, and personification
In “There Will Come Soft Rains,” Ray Bradbury begins with a setting/character of a futuristic, semi-sentient house. Yet, no one lives in the house. As the day goes on, the house goes along its daily routine with no one to tell it to stop, and eventually, we are clued in to the fact that the family has been vaporized, presumably by nuclear war. Later, a dog, covered in tumors and sores, enters the house when the house recognizes it as the family dog. The dog dies quickly, and the house cleans its corpse with an emotionless efficiency. The afternoon and suppertime roll by, and the house continues its routine. It conjures card tables, makes dinner, and reads an emotional poem to Mrs. McClellan, the mother. That night, at 10, a falling tree bough breaks a window and knocks over a bottle of cleaning solvent, starting a fire. The house tries its best to fight the fire, using all its water supply and fire-suppressing chemicals, but the fire wins out. The next day, only a wall of the house is left. All that it can do is repeat the date, again and again and again.
Time plays an integral part in “There Will Come Soft Rains,” both structurally and thematically. Structurally, the time divides the story into manageable pieces, each showing a different window into the world Bradbury has painted. For example, at the beginning of the story, the house blurts out the time like an alarm, setting the scene for the story.
In the living room the voice-clock sang, Tick-tock, seven o’clock, time to get up, time to get up, seven o’clock!
Thematically, time plays, arguably, a more important part. The house keeps a certain routine every day, no matter rain or shine, and time is a central part of this routine. The house tells time at constant intervals and uses it to perform certain actions, such as making breakfast. However, the routine is of no use. No humans ever eat the meals or use the nursery or listen to the poems the house reads. And the house knows this.
The dog ran upstairs, hysterically yelping to each door, at last realizing, as the house realized, that only silence was here.
Yet the house goes on because the instructions are wired too firmly into its brain. Bradbury takes perfect advantage of this quality of the house. After the house burns down, one wall still stands, and, determined, it tells the date again and again.
Among the ruins, one wall stood alone. Within the wall, a last voice said, over and over again and again, even as the sun rose to shine upon the heaped rubble and steam:
‘Today is August 5, 2026, today is August 5, 2026, today is…’
This scene shows the reader, without telling, how determined the house is to keep to its routine.
Keeping on the topic of the house, it is more than it seems. In truth, the house symbolizes the last touch of humanity on the world. As stated, all other buildings were destroyed in the nuclear blast.
The house stood alone in a city of rubble and ashes. This was the one house left standing.
The house is alone, but it continues to serve.
The house was an altar with ten thousand attendants, big, small, servicing, attending, in choirs. But the gods had gone away, and the ritual of the religion continued senselessly, uselessly.
In the night, the house reads a poem from Sarah Teasdale meant for Mrs. McClellan. The poem’s meaning in the story is rather obvious. It’s meant to mimic the reality of this world.
Not one would mind …
If mankind perished utterly…
And Spring herself …
Would scarcely know that we were gone
The house, even through the fire, tries to stay alive. It must be the best servant to humans, except there are no humans. When the fire breaks through and begins consuming the organs of the house, it keeps on reading poems, it makes breakfast, it tells the time. For the house, its routine is too well-coded into its artificial intelligence for it to stop. The house only stops when it’s dead.
And one voice, with sublime disregard for the situation, read poetry aloud in the fiery study, until all the film spools burned, until all the wires withered and the circuits cracked.
And even after the destruction of most of the house, the last wall stays on, doing its job as best it can.
The fire that killed the house also stands for something greater, an abstract quality. The fire symbolizes the encroach of nature and its taking-back of what humanity had seized from it. Ray Bradbury intentionally personifies it to create a kind of symbolic, human struggle between the house and fire.
The fire crackled… The fire lay… the fire was clever.
The fire, nature, wins. The house, without human civilization, is nothing.
In summary, the house symbolizes the last piece of humanity. Everything else that matters is destroyed or dead. It makes breakfast and reads poems, knowing full well that it doesn’t have to. The fire, symbolizing the encroach of nature, battles against the house and wins. Without humans to beat it back, Mother Nature takes back everything eventually. Yet the house, determined in each circuit, keeps the time and date always, even after most of it is charred, radioactive dust.
There is a lot to learn from Ray Bradbury’s “There Will Come Soft Rains.” First, Bradbury writes with such careful detail in his prose it almost feels like one is reading a poem.
“In the kitchen the breakfast stove gave a hissing sigh and ejected from its warm interior eight pieces of perfectly browned toast, eight eggs sunnyside up, sixteen slices of bacon, two coffees, and two cool glasses of milk.”
Sight, taste, touch, and hearing are all woven into one sentence that one cannot help but to visualize the scene in one’s head with a ravenous hunger.
“The house was an altar with ten thousand attendants, big, small, servicing, attending, in choirs. But the gods had gone away, and the ritual of the religion continued senselessly, uselessly.”
The sentences like this spark up the mind with thought and establish an even stronger connection between reader and writer, which every writer struggles to realize.
In addition, Bradbury uses elements like time or pattern to establish grand themes in his stories. For example, the element of time is used to organize “There Will Come Soft Rains,” but it is used so much that, like a refrain, Bradbury uses it for theme in his ending of the story.
“Dawn showed faintly in the east. Among the ruins, one wall stood alone. Within the wall, a last voice said, over and over again and again, even as the sun rose to shine upon the heaped rubble and steam:
‘Today is August 5, 2026, today is August 5, 2026, today is…’”
This formula of repetition is easily replicated, and a good writer should always keep it up his sleeve. The repetition almost becomes a kind of inside joke, only known to those who read and so keeps the reader even more invested into what he/she is reading.
Finally, Bradbury’s use of symbolism deserves more praise than a man could give in a lifetime. Every player in “There Will Come Soft Rains” almost always can be symbolizing some greater abstract quality or ideal. From the humans to the sentient house, Bradbury’s work can be almost read as a philosophical debate.
Discussion Questions:
- What do you think the house/fire symbolize? Why?
- Are there other minor symbols in this story? If so, what are they?
- Who is the main character of this story?
the pva creative writing review 