August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains

In his intriguing story There Will Come Soft Rains, Ray Bradbury portrays a dystopian future wherein all of humanity has been destroyed and all that remains is their creations, more specifically the technology they’ve created. By portraying this haunting image of a world decimated by simple human nature, Bradbury illustrates the idea that we, as a species, cannot resist our nature to expand beyond current limits and to explore unchartered territory, and in doing so, will have reached and will continue to reach places, literal and figurative, that we never should have visited or even had been willing to visit. The inevitable result is our demise.

With the entire population attached to their televisions, the city is no more than a “graveyard” – there is no life. The energy that once roamed the streets was consumed by mankind’s technological progress. In this future, existence is rudimentary at best, and, even though people are still breathing, people cease to remain truly alive. Alternatively, the mood that Bradbury expresses in “August 2026” is one of detachment. The mechanical house cooks, cleans, and sets reminders for the family, creating a sense of aloofness between the family and its humanity. With constant reminders of the date, time, events, and even what the family has to do next, it is evident that in this future, technology has taken over common facets of human nature. This disengagement from common tasks, even simple, mental ones, is an omen to the idea that technology will ultimately come to demolish mankind’s sense of

Through the use of stylistic devices and character, Bradbury conveys his theme of the destructiveness of technology. He shows the reader that if technology reaches a point where it is doing daily chores and simple tasks for society, then we

Though the newly developed technology has innumerable advantageous and has brought human civilization thus far, human’s reliance of this technology will bring upon their demise. The warning is enhanced as the author uses personification to bring life to the remaining lifeless objects after the perishing of humans, creating a sense of emptiness. Furthermore, throughout the account,the author symbolized the previous inhabitants of the house and humans as “the gods (that) had gone away”. Furthermore, Bradbury compares the house’s service to its habitants as a “ritual”. Yet, the absence of the humans rendered the “ritual” (the house's service and purpose) “senseless” and “useless”. For instance, when the house announced “‘Today is August 4, 2026,’ ”, “No doors slammed, no carpets took the soft tread of rubber heels” (Bradbury 1). (ADD THREE SENTENCES)The author’s warning about technology can be further be implied today, as the conundrum has only worsened throughout the years. Hence his warning is only becoming more

Here readers can see how Bradbury feared that people might begin to form close relationships with technology, “The house stood alone in a city of rubble and ashes. This was the one house left standing. At night the ruined city gave off a radioactive glow which could be seen for miles.”. This shows readers how perhaps Bradbury wanted to prove that just because you love your phone or tablet, that does not automatically mean that the phone or tablet feels the same about you. Finally a final problem Bradbury predicts might happen is visible in "A sound of thunder”. In this story readers can see how Bradbury fears that we, as humans, will not be able to see the possible damage we are causing through our technological advancements. While he illustrated this through time travel, readers can apply the same concept to modern technological advancements that impact society and/or the environment. All in all, Bradbury sees multiple technology based problems that we should be aware of and try our utmost to prevent from becoming a

Ray Bradbury has written several futuristic stories which portray the advancement of society. “There Will Come Soft Rains” contains technology in the house that we only dream about. Our current homes, compared to the house in Bradbury’s story, seem bland and helpless in comparison.

Bradbury shows that the family lives in a high tech house when he writes, “…this house which clothed and fed and rocked them to sleep and played and sang and was good to them…” (Bradbury 1) which shows the house does almost anything for this family. The point of this house was for the house to do all the work so that the time that the parents would be working they could spend with their children. However, everything changed when the mother said, “Maybe I don’t have enough to do. Maybe I have time to think too much. Why don’t we shut the whole house off for a few days and take a vacation?”(Bradbury 4) which shows that the mother was getting overwhelmed and feeling like she was completely useless. Once the mother feels this way the parents decide to shut down the nursery which causes chaos between them and their children when they say, “They screamed and pranced and threw things. They yelled and sobbed and swore and jumped at the furniture...” (Bradbury 13) which shows that the family has actually been torn apart because of house/veldt.

Bradbury’s imaginings of the futuristic house are bold in attempting to convince the reader that it had human qualities and that the house had an almost above superiority over humans. “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.” (Bradbury 2) Bradbury describes the characteristics of the house, what it can do versus what humans would normally do in handling everyday tasks and chores. Almost with a religious cadence, the futuristic house continues to do its set duties.

“August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains” is a story written by Ray Bradbury. The story opens in a living room of a well technologically advance house, where a clock which is voice activated yells out the time, making sure everyone gets up, and also makes breakfast, cleans, and does just about all the household things you are to do. After we read about all the things the house does, we start to notice that the house is empty, which then leads us to learn about the silhouettes on the walls of the house, which we can infer, based on our knowledge of bombs that this is from some type of nuclear bomb. As we read on we learn that the house is the only house left standing in a pile of ruins. After a while the voice in the house starts to play one of Mrs. McClellan favorite poems, which is ironic given the type of situation that the house is unaware that has taken place, the poems talks about nature and how it will still move on and not care that mankind has wiped itself out completely. After the poem, the mood of the story changes the house catches on fire and even with all of its technology it still can’t stop the fire and burns down, the only thing that remains is a wall, which holds the clock that just keeps repeating the date August 5, 2026. From reading the story I think the author plays with the idea that nature is the only thing that can go along its track without any human interactions.

“Complete darkness, not a hint of the silver world outside, the window tightly shut, the chamber to tomb-world where no sound from the great city could penetrate” (9). In the novel, Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury compares this “tomb-world” to the modern society we live in. The imagery of the restriction the room has to the real world metaphorically explains how technology can weaken and infect a person’s awareness of their surroundings. To most, technology is viewed as advancements in society, as we develop more knowledge to improve our lifestyles for pleasure. However, technology is destructive to the mind as it instead, deceives a person which makes them lose their purpose. Bradbury expresses his trepidation of how obsession with technology and entertainment will make people become mindless and inhumane through figurative language, symbolism, and imagery.

The main theme of Bradbury’s “There Will Come Soft Rains” is technology has a lot of power, but it has its limits. “There Will Come Soft Rains” shows how technology can be both helpful and destructive. In the story, Bradbury suggests that technology is destructive by writing about a radioactive glow. “The house stood alone in a city if rubble and ashes. This was the one house left standing. At night the ruined city gave off a radioactive glow which could be seen for miles”. (328) This evidence shows some kind of nuclear warfare caused mass destruction in the city. On the other hand, Bradbury also shows how technology can be helpful. Bradbury mentions many examples of how technology has affected everyday living. The following examples were mentioned on page 328; “In the living room, the voice clock sang”, “In the kitchen the breakfast stove gave a hissing sigh and ejected from its

This house is fully equipped with 21st century technology. Even though there are no people the house works on a specific schedule 24 hours 7 days a week. The story begins normally, alarm clock goes off and right away that’s a sign of people. What was not expected was that there is no humans beings what so ever, it was just one little house by it self, around is just rubble and debree. Since this story is written as if it was in the future, everything is automated. The house is a machine that did everything from cleaning to preparing food. Although people are not present (because of the nuclear holocaust), the house still functions. The climax of the story is when a weak tree bough crashed through the kitchen window, knocking over cleaning solvent over the stove. Instantaneously the kitchen catches fire. The house tried its best to defend itself but as we all know nature is unstoppable. This story is phenomenon; it’s very intense and has you on the edge of your seat the whole time. This story is made for the reader to visualize the actual story, as if you were actually there. All that is left is the lonely house and the wounded dog. What happens in the end really is unexpected and even sad. In Ray Bradbury’s short story “August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rain”, He uses various literary devices to warn us about the dangers of technology . Bradbury uses symbols to illustrate that humans are to dependent on technology. He uses the themes of the story to

The setting of Bradbury 's novel is at a time of war; bombs are dropped onto the society that once was home to Montag, "Perhaps the bombs were there, and the jets, ten miles, five miles, one mile up, for the merest instance, like a grain thrown over the heavens by a great sowing hand, and the bombs drifting with dreadful swiftness, yet sudden slowness, down upon the morning city they had left behind"(158). Undoubtedly, these bombs are a sinister and dangerous progression for technology. Bradbury 's society has many reasons to feel threatened by the advancements of its world.

In the short story ‘August 26: There Will Come Soft Rains’, the author Ray Bradbury uses the machines, paint stains, and the dog as symbols to reinforce the idea that the technology that humans have created can help us but that it can lead to the destruction of humanity. Ray Bradbury wanted to explore this idea because he lived through a war of nuclear destruction. He has seen what has happened to the world in times of mass devastation and destruction. At the time of writing the short story, it was years after World War 2, and the world was still recovering from the damages created. Bradbury shows how even years after a war it was still fresh in people’s minds by writing a story that correlated with the world he lived in. Bradbury wanted

melancholy world of Ray Bradbury’s “August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains.” In his work,