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There Will Come Soft Rains Ray Bradbury Analysis

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Nature and Mankind: A Close Reading of Ray Bradbury’s “There Will Come Soft Rains” “There Will Come Soft Rains” by Ray Bradbury is a sci-fi text that tells the story of a “house [that stands] alone in a city of rubble and ashes” (Bradbury np) and how it interacts with nature. The house is empty and its inhabitants, the McClellan family, are nowhere to be seen. The machines in the house has no consciousness that the house’s occupants are not in the house, hence, they still perform their functions that are programmed to serve the house’s residents. The story revolves around the idea that the natural world will still continue existing after humankind destroys itself with humankind’s creation. The house stands in a city, that at night, “[gives] …show more content…

At seven in the morning, the voice-clock wakes the McClellan family. At eight-one, Mr. and Mrs. McClellan go to work, while their children go to school. At nine-fifteen, “tiny robot mice” (Bradbury np) darts out of the “warrens in the walls” (Bradbury np) and cleans the house. At ten-fifteen, the garden sprinklers “[fills] the garden with falling light” (Bradbury np). At two thirty-five, “bridge tables [sprouts] from patio walls” (Bradbury np) and “playing cards [flutters] onto pads in a shower of pips” (Bradbury np). At four o’clock, the bridge tables fold back again through the paneled walls. At four-thirty, films play at the nursery for children’s hour. At five, “the bath [fills] with clear hot water” (Bradbury np). From six to eight, dinner, washing plates from dinner, and smoking the cigar, happen. At nine, the family’s beds are warmed. At nine-five, a voice box reads a poem for Mrs. McClellan. These are the things that the family underwent every day when they were still alive. Consequentially, the machines dictate what the McClellan family should be doing when they were still alive. Because they had been almost fully reliant to their machines, they had a constant routine that followed the routine of their machines in their house. In this sense, it can be said that they were dehumanized by the machines since the text shows how the occupants of the house became similar to the machines that people of their time …show more content…

This can be clearly seen when the house “[shuts] up its windows and drawn shades in an old-maidenly preoccupation with self-protection which [borders] on mechanical paranoia” (Bradbury np). The house always inquires “‘Who goes there? What’s the password?’” (Bradbury np) before letting anything or anyone in. However, no response comes from the “foxes and whining cats” (Bradbury np) outside the house. The house “[quivers] at each sound” (Bradbury np). When a sparrow brushes against the house’s window, the house snaps its shade up since “not even a bird must touch the house” (Bradbury np). The house tries to keep all animals outside with the exception of a dog, “gone to the bone and filled with sores” (Bradbury np), that can be inferred to be the pet of the dead McClellan family. Aside from the dog, all animals inside the house are mechanical and they perform different tasks within the house. The tiny robot mice and “copper scrap rats” collects dirt and cleans the floor, while the aluminum roaches and iron crickets play with the kids during children’s time. These animals are different from the animals outside that are alive since the house wants its mechanical ways to be

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