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There Will Come Soft Rains Analysis

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Artificial Intelligence, Stripping Us From Our Ourselves Ray Bradbury writes in, Dandelion Wine, “I want to feel all there is to feel, he thought. Let me feel tired, now, let me feel tired. I mustn't forget, I'm alive, I know I'm alive, I mustn't forget it tonight or tomorrow or the day after that.” Ray Bradbury's short story “There Will Come Soft Rains,” begins in August 4, 2026, with a population decimated by an atomic bomb. The short story ends on August 5, 2026. In between this time a house, outfitted with an array of technology, performs all the daily tasks of the cooking, cleaning, and entertainment yet, silhouettes burnt on a wall on the outside of the house shows a man mowing the lawn, and a woman picking flowers and, a children playing …show more content…

As I recall your favorite…”(Bradbury 474). The reader understands that the woman loves listening to poetry and picking flowers. This implies the woman has an education and a fondness for nature. Nature, somewhere where we can truly think and ultimately find ourselves. The same goes for the woman picking flowers she wants to stay true to her ancestors. She, like the man, deviates from the norm in a complete technologically run world. Nature frees the mind to ponder novel ideas. The woman gets her hands dirty planting and tending to her garden which she owns. The power of possession drives her to tend to her garden, to feel a sense of accomplishment when completing that task. A machine could have simply done that work effortlessly; however, the woman wants to draw that connection with nature and take the time to clear her mind while pulling, planting, and hoeing a garden. She would then suffer deprivation of new ideas and creative thought . Work keeps the mind active and in thought, Thoreau a great admirer of nature even concludes that “Housework was a pleasant pastime.”(Thoreau 198) Much of what we see in the short story shows the complete opposite, the house cooks the meals and mechanized rats clean the house. The woman opens her mind while gardening and fills it with reading poetry. Robert Frost writes, “ Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.” He agrees …show more content…

The small boy’s “hands flung into the air” (Bradbury 472) to throw the ball to his sister, who will never catch the ball. Bradbury included the boy and girl to warn that children are not safe from technology, it too will take their activities from them. All the family members are all situated outside in the sunshine planting, mowing and playing. Soaking up the warmth of the sunshine, what most families do together. Inside, only cold machines perform these tasks of cooking and cleaning. The imitated emotional responses of the house lend no comfort to the family revealing Bradbury’s message that technology separates us from each

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