Cold War in the Eyes of Ray Bradbury

1700 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Ray bradbury criticism

Ray Bradbury, from small town America (Waukegan, Illinois), wrote two very distinctly different novels in the early Cold War era. The first was The Martian Chronicles (1950) know for its “collection” of short stories that, by name, implies a broad historical rather than a primarily individual account and Fahrenheit 451 (1953), which centers on Guy Montag. The thematic similarities of Mars coupled with the state of the American mindset during the Cold War era entwine the two novels on the surface. Moreover, Bradbury was “preventing futures” as he stated in an interview with David Mogen in 1980. A dystopian society was a main theme in both books, but done in a compelling manner that makes the reader aware of Bradbury’s optimism in the stories. A society completely frightened by a nuclear bomb for example will inevitably become civil to one another. Bradbury used his life to formulate his writing, from his views of people, to the books he read, to his deep suspicion of the machines. . The final nuclear bombs that decimate the earth transform the land. The reader is left with the autonomous house and its final moments as, it, is taken over by fire and consumed by the nature it resisted. Bradbury used science fantasy to analyze humans themselves and the “frontiersman attitude” of destroying the very beauty they find by civilizing it.
When referring to the Cold War Novels of Bradbury (The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451) it is imperative to understand his mode of thinking during the time. Bradbury first captures the general sense of anxiety, as well as his own, felt in a new atomic age, in the fifth chapter of The Martian Chronicles, "The Taxpayer." This short chapter identifies fear of nuclear war as an impetus for leaving Earth...

... middle of paper ...

.... EPUB file.
Bradbury, Ray. The Martian Chronicles: The Grand Master Edition. New York: Bantam Spectra, 1977. EPUB file.
Donovan, Richard. “Morals from Mars.” The Reporter 26 June 1951: 38-40. Web. 2 Dec. 2013
Kelley, Michael, et al. “Farewell Ray Bradbury, Sf Author And Library Fan.” Library Journal 137.12 (n.d.): Biography Index Past and Present (H.W. Wilson). Web. 7 Nov. 2013.
“Ray(mond Douglas) Bradbury (1920).” Contemporary Literary Criticism Vol. 42 (1987): 31-47. Web. 10 Nov. 2013
"Ray Bradbury (1920-)." Short Story Criticism Vol. 29 (1998): 36-93. Web.10 Nov. 2013
"Ray Bradbury (1920-)." Contemporary Literary Criticism Vol. 235 (2007): 95-186. Web.10 Nov. 2013
"Ray Douglas Bradbury." The Biography Channel website. n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.
Weller, Sam. “Ray Bradbury, The Art of Fiction No. 203.” the Paris Review. The Paris Review, 2013. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.

Show More
Related

  • Comparing Fahrenheit 451 and Modern American Society

    598 Words  | 2 Pages

    Fahrenheit 451 is a science fiction book that still reflects to our current world. Bradbury does a nice job predicting what the world would be like in the future; the future for his time period and for ours as well. The society Bradbury describes is, in many ways, like the one we are living in now.

    Read More

  • Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

    1080 Words  | 3 Pages

    Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. 60th Anniversary Edition. New York, NY: A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1951. 001-158. Print.

    Read More

  • Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, and The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury

    846 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...and. Certainly he has pictured a place so awful, so replete with destruction, that as readers, we want no part of it. We can imagine easily that Bradbury is responding not only to his authorial need to show us how similar our decline can be to the decline of Mars in the book. (Robert Peltier)

    Read More

  • Fahrenheit 451 Critical Analysis

    735 Words  | 2 Pages

    Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Ballantine Books, 1953. Print. - See more at: http://www.chacha.com/question/what-is-the-mla-citation-for-fahrenheit-451-by-ray-bradbury#sthash.AIHUTFBv.dpuf

    Read More

  • How it Feels to be Colored Me by Hurston and Hughes’ The Negro Mother

    1238 Words  | 3 Pages

    Abcarian, Richard. Literature: the Human Experience : Reading and Writing. : Bedford/Saint Martin's, 2012. Print.

    Read More

  • Review of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

    1494 Words  | 3 Pages

    Review of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 In Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451, the author utilizes the

    Read More

  • Fahrenheit 451 Essay

    1147 Words  | 3 Pages

    Fahrenheit 451’s Relevance to Today Fahrenheit 451’s relevance to today can be very detailed and prophetic when we take a deep look into our American society. Although we are not living in a communist setting with extreme war waging on, we have gained technologies similar to the ones Bradbury spoke of in Fahrenheit 451 and a stubborn civilization that holds an absence of the little things we should enjoy. Bradbury sees the future of America as a dystopia, yet we still hold problematic issues without the title of disaster, as it is well hidden under our democracy today. Fahrenheit 451 is much like our world today, which includes television, the loss of free speech, and the loss of the education and use of books. Patai explains that Bradbury saw that people would soon be controlled by the television and saw it as the creators chance to “replace lived experience” (Patai 2).

    Read More

  • Dishonesty in The Great Gatsby

    1501 Words  | 4 Pages

    Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Linda Pavlovski. Vol.

    Read More

  • Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451: Abolish Censorship

    1380 Words  | 3 Pages

    Born in 1920, Ray Bradbury was influenced by Edgar Allen Poe during his early years, and he began writing horror stories when he was twelve. His family moved from Waukegan to Los Angeles in 1934 since his father found a job that paid enough money to support the family. He attributed to some incidents his lifelong habit of writing every day: “He began writing stories at the age of fifteen and in 1937 he joined the Los Angeles Science Fiction League. In 1938, he published his first short story, Hollerbochen's Dilemma” (Telgen 140). Later then, he wrote science fictions and that became his major writing style gradually. His works were highly recognized after his 1950 success: “When The Martian Chronicles was published in 1950, Bradbury was hailed as a sophisticated science fiction writer” (Telgen 140). His other work includes Dark Carnival, which was his first published work, included several stories. Another example work is Martian Chroniclesis, a fiction that talks about some experiences and weird thinking that immigrants bring from the Earth to the Mars. His mo...

    Read More

  • Fahrenheit 451 and Cautions for Society

    864 Words  | 2 Pages

    Much of what the future holds are consequences of the events that have already taken place. Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451 is a story about a lifestyle in the future that has evolved from our present, but in a seemingly different world. There is no flow of ideas, and the main purpose in a person's life in those days was to relax, not think, and be happy. Despite the seemingly unreality of the world in the future, the author is using it as a cautionary tale of what may become of our society. Bradbury stresses his views on how best to keep our society's system of government checks and balances, technological advances, and its fluidity of ideas.

    Read More

  • Critical Analysis of "The Veldt"

    1245 Words  | 3 Pages

    Paradowski, Robert J. “Ray Bradbury.” Critical Survey Of Long Fiction, Fourth Edition (2010): 1-9. Literary Reference Center. Web. 30 Jan. 2014.

    Read More

  • Fahrenheit 451

    929 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the society presented by Ray Bradbury, the average person is superficial and exclusivly engages with their peers by means of mind numbing topics and statements that are not at all challenging. The intellectual and opinionated person are seen as rebellious and radical. Bradbury uses Faber’s analitical skills and deep thoughts to scruitinize the current society we live in, and he also likes to think about the “why” and no...

    Read More

  • Cathedral, by Raymond Carver

    1426 Words  | 3 Pages

    Carver, Raymond. Cathedral. “The Norton Introduction to Literature.” New York: W.W Norton &, 2014. Print.

    Read More

  • The Power of the Martian Chronicles

    1929 Words  | 4 Pages

    This association of a foreign planet and Bradbury's reputation as a science fiction author immediately identified The Martian Chronicles as a work of science fiction. Decades later, in an essay on the novel, Edward S Gallagher (Gallagher 55-82) said that The Martian Chronicles "is one of those acknowledged science fiction masterpieces." Bradbury was breaking new grounds, creating respect for science fiction as a literary genre that would be admired by those involved in the literary establishment (Marowski and Matiz 321.) The blue and orange cover of the paperback version of the book depicted characters more reminiscent of Fantasy & Science fiction magazine's artwork than of Bradbury's vague descriptions of his Martians.

    Read More

  • Lady Macbeth: A Dynamic Character

    1263 Words  | 3 Pages

    Moulton, Charles Wells. Moulton's Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors through the Beginning of the Twentieth Century: Volume 1. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1966. Print.

    Read More

More about Cold War in the Eyes of Ray Bradbury

Open Document