How would you feel to be the last person on a planet? Would you like to be alone or what if the only other person left is someone you do not like? The chapters The Silent Towns and The Long Years in The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury is about two different people believing they are the last person alive on Mars. The Long Years. In this chapter a man named Hathaway lives on Mars with his “family”. Every night after dinner he goes out to four graves in his backyard and whispers that he is sorry, but he was just so lonely. One night when he looks up into the sky he sees a rocket approaching. He sets a nearby city on fire in order to be seen. The rocket just keeps soaring past. The next night the same thing happens but this time the rocket …show more content…
lands on Mars. Hathaway frantically prepares a meal for the astronauts and runs outside to greet them. This shows how desperate he is for visitors. When he finally approaches them he finds that it is his old Captain Wilder and a man named Williamson. Wilder is however amazed by how young Hathaway’s family looks compared to how much Hathaway has aged. Wilder sends Williamson to investigate something. Williamson tells Wilder that he found the four graves with Hathaway's wife and daughters names on them. Then suddenly Hathaway has a heart attack and dies. Wilder then realizes that his wife and daughters are robots made by Hathaway that had died from a virus. When Wilder tells his family that he has died, he is puzzled when they have no emotion about it. He asks if they are sad and they respond that Hathaway has never taught them to be sad. The wife then goes on about how happy Hathaway was even tho he was the last person alive. Hathaway’s wife says “We could have lived in a regular house in the town, but he liked it up here, where he could be primitive if he liked, or modern if he liked.”(Bradbury 218) He programmed the robots to only do what he liked no matter what. He was so lonely he wanted to make clones of the ones he missed the most. The Silent Towns is about Walter Gripp, a man that also believes he is the last one on Mars.
He walks around town lonely and bored every day. Until one day he hears a phone ring. Once he realizes what is happening he frantically searches for the ringing phone. He doesn’t pick up in time, but right after hears a second phone ring from a house. He also misses that call as well. This gave him the idea to call every number in the phonebook til someone answers. While calling a beauty parlor a woman named Genevieve answers the phone. Walter immediately wants to meet her and is on his way to New Texas City. When he meets her he is unsatisfied with the way she looks; she is ginormous with sticky chocolate fingers. When they go on a date she is extremely annoying by making him do everything for her. They go to the movie theater and she makes him watch the same boring movie over and over. Whenever the film finishes she makes him go and restart it. When she unexpectedly shows up in a wedding dress he can not take it anymore. He immediately flees the town hoping to never have to see her again. As Bradbury states in the story “And he was out the door and into his car before she could scream, and when once in awhile over the long years the phone rings-he doesn’t answer” (Bradbury 206). Walter Gripp would rather be lonely and by himself for the rest of his life than to be stuck with someone he does not like. These two stories are very similar. The only difference is that the “last person alive”
on Mars has a different perspective on loneliness. Hathaway would rather have clones of his dead family than to feel completely alone. Whereas Walter Gripp would rather be alone than to have to spend time with someone he does not like. Would you rather be lonely over having to spend your life with someone you do not like? Or if you were in this time would you feel comfortable making clones of your family so you are not lonely?
As the movie progresses, Walter's new self-confidence shows when his mother returns with her latest abusive boyfriend. The main reason Mae had wanted Walter to stay with his eccentric uncles is to try to find the millions of dollars his uncles are supposed to have hidden away somewhere. Mae and her boyfriend, a supposed private investigator, claim Hub and
Walter, distraught after Mama had denounced his ambition to run a liquor store, had skipped work for three days, borrowing Willy Harris's car to drive around the city. Mama, seeing Walter so defeated, decided to entrust the remaining 6,500 dollars of her 10,000 dollar check to him, saying, "It ain't much, but it's all I got in the world and I'm putting it in your hands." (Hansberry,) Having incessantly denied Walter's dream,
case. When you take the time to analyze both story, you come to find that both have the same
In the story, "The View of Me From Mars," Lee K. Abott writes a story about a father and son relationship. In this story the father realizes that he isn't perfect and tries to have his son cover up his own mistake. Lee K. Abott, though being subtle, makes it known, through the characters he uses, that a person can't believe everything he sees. The author successfully enlightens the reader with his use of point of view, characterization, and theme to make the reader feel sympathy and to give the story credibility.
If the Martian Chronicles had been written in the 1999’s instead of fifty years ago, many issues and problems would change. Ray Bradbury wrote his book in 1946. In it he wrote about problems such as censorship, man’s cruelty to man, and loneliness. Each issue shows up in one or two of his chronicles. All of his issues affect every one of his characters in many different ways.
Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, and The Illustrated Man are three of Ray Bradbury's most famous books. Ray Bradbury has written thousands of published items from poetry to short stories to three hundred page books; he has done it all. Bradbury's best writing combines a great imagination with a poetic style of its own.
His position in life can be regarded as symbolic of every black male struggling to provide for his family by any means necessary. Although Walter has a job, it seems inadequate for his survival. As a result, he has become frustrated and lacks good judgement. Throughout this play, Walter searches for the key ingredient that will make his life blissful. His frustrations stem from him not being able to act as a man and provide for his family and grasp hold of his ideals to watch them manifest into a positive situation.
The underlining theme in The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury is unarguably war. War is the point of origin from all conflicts generated throughout this story. War drives man to Mars, nearly wipes out the Martian population, wreaks havoc on Earth, and forces humans to leave their newly found planet to its previous tenants. War is the driving factor for this whole story; without it, this story never occurred. It gives humanity the courage to travel way out of their comfort zone onto a wasteland of a planet. Being that war follows humans to Mars due to their actions makes humans realize that they cannot escape their own violence.
To begin with, despite the foundation of the two narratives being the same, there are still withstanding variations in the complete story. Predominantly,
both stories shared similar ending and moral which is receiving enlightenment in first hand. "The
After buying a house, Mama gives the remaining money to Walter, telling him to save some for Beneatha’s medical school, and that he can decide what the rest of the money can go to. Walter tells Travis that he is going to change their lives with the money: “One day...I’ll pull up on the driveway...just a plain black chrysler… though I’ll have to get something a little sportier for Ruth---maybe a Cadillac convertible...and I‘ll go inside...to see you sitting on the floor with the catalogues of the great in America all around you… just tell me what it is you want to be---… and I hand you the world!” (108-109). Walter fantasizes about owning classy cars and being able to pay for his son to go to any of the top-notch schools in America. His visions for the future reveal that his perception of reality is unrealistic and that wealth matters very much to him. He is very confident that he will be able to give Travis “the world”, which shows that he has excessive faith in his business deal. His delusions and excitement can hinder his ability to make calculated decisions. Without saving any money for Beneatha’s medical school, Walter gives the money to his friend, Willy, to invest in liquor stores. The next day, Walter’s other friend, Bobo, visits Walter to tell him that Willy ran off with the money. Walter melts down and yells, “Man, I put my life in your
Bradbury developed the setting of the story similar to Earth as far aslandscape, atmosphere, and people in order to emphasize his intentions. Themartians are described as if they are American Indians at the time of theAmerican Revolution. For example, in the beginning of the story, Bradburydepicts Martians "they had the fair, brownish skin of the true Martian, the yellowcoin eyes, the soft musical voices." The trees, the towns in Mars, and the grassare all described like Earth landscape. Bradbury's Mars is a mirror of Earth.These plots raise moral issues and reflections of how history may repeat itself. Bradbury portrays Mars as humankind's second world, where we may goafter our Earthly existence. In the episode of "April 2000: The third expedition,"Captain John Black's mother said "you get a second chance to live" (pp.44).Lustig's grandmother said "ever since we died" (pp.40). Humans have a naturalfear of death. Some humans may even have a death wish. Bradbury reveals histhought of death through the connection between Mars and Earth. Through Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, Bradbury warns us of ourfuture. In the episode of "June 2000: And the Moon ve still as bright," CaptainWilder said, "one day Earth will be as Mars is today...It's an object lesson incivilizations. We'll learn from Mars" (pp. 55). Throught the story, Earth man,especially American think that they are superior than the Martian. Earth mancan do anything and knows everyting. However, Bradbury's message is to tellthem it is not true. Earth man, here American people realize there are manythings that they can learn from others.
One can infer from this moment that Walter is hav... ... middle of paper ... ... that same rhythm throughout. Whereas in the movie, his fantasies play in active role of pursuing his quest of finding the missing negative for the last Times magazine edition- or he loses his job.
Walter introduces readers to his characters in such a way that it seems like a movie. He allows the characters personalities to grow as the novel progresses and they intersect with other characters. The main characters are Pasqual Tursi, Richard Burton, Debra “Dee” Moray, Alvis Bender, Michael Deane, Shane Wheeler, Claire Silver, and Pat Bender. These eight character’s stories provide the plot line to the book. Some stories are tragic and others hopeful, but all depend on one another at some point during the course of the novel. Walter shows how peoples lives can intersect...
Through the film we follow Walter on his journey and are subject not only to the reality of the situations that he finds himself in and the experiences that he is accumulating, we are also subjected to the daydream like situations that Walter is seeing in his figment of reality in which due to the fact that out of his view of not doing anything noteworthy in his life he then projects his dreamlike and amazing fantasy form of reality out into the world for us to see and experience. For example, in one scene of the movie Walter is talking on the phone with a technical advisor for a dating site in which he is having difficulties with, and the technical advisor states to the fact that Walter had left most of his profile blank, to which he replies that he hadn’t done anything noteworthy enough in his life to fill his page with. As Walter says this we are cast out into his dreamlike subjective reality on what he thinks would be optimal for him and noteworthy as he dives off of the subway terminal and into a building and saves the dog of his romantic interest as it explodes behind him and is forced back into the “real”