Fear; the destruction of our world
This is it. He’s coming to kill me. He’s coming to beat me. You feel the adrenaline pumping through your veins, sweat in your palms, time slows down, yet you feel like it’s not enough, in a time as stressful as this, what would you be willing to sacrifice to get yourself to safety? The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury is a 1950’s sci-fi short story collection that chronicles the colonization of mars. The story makes many accurate illustrations on how various factors of the American lifestyle will bring havoc and destruction to society. Fear leads to pressured responses and erratic actions, and Bradbury predicts how these fearful responses will degrade society; this is supported by our world today.
Xenophobia,
…show more content…
In “The Green Morning”, Ben Driscoll travels to Mars and he immediately faints from the “thin” air quality from the absence of trees. The doctor recommends to send him home, however, this provokes his greatest fear of returning to earth. Not wanting to be sent home, “He looked down at his hands and turned them over. He [decides that he] would plant trees and grass. That would be his job, to fight against the very thing that might prevent his staying here. He would have a private horticultural war with mars”(Bradbury 75). Ben is very fearful of losing his opportunity on Mars, nearly fainting when the doctors threaten to send him back. He thinks that it’s absurd to be sent home “because of air”, so he sets his priority on staying on Mars. Tree planting is very beneficial to Ben and to other humans that are residing on mars because it could potentially keep them safe. However, it is more detrimental to the planet Mars and the Martians living on it. Ben Driscoll knows that he could cause “a private horticultural war with mars”, but he doesn't care and instead wishes “to fight against the very thing that might prevent his staying there”. When you hear the word “war’ the first thing that comes into your mind is usually death, violence or a generalized “bad” thing. The planting of the trees could be detrimental to the environment of Mars, for the …show more content…
Sadly, Bradbury’s predictions about the effect fear have on erratic decision making is shown in society today. An egotistical businessman named Donald Trump, who was to our dismay was recently elected to be our president. He is very controversial and makes a lot of rude and sexist remarks, so people are still confused unto why America has chosen him to be their president. The answer is simple. People did it out of fear, fear that the refugees coming from a very dangerous place will harm them. Statistics have shown that “31% of Americans specifically say the new immigration policy will keep them safer…. [while only] 26% fear the new rules will make them less safe” (Ropeik). This shows that some Americans find Trump's fear of terrorists beneficial and think that it would keep them safe from the immigrants or outsiders from other countries. Ignoring the fact that they believe he is under qualified, they made this rash decision purely to be protected from what they fear. Some Americans fear that the immigrants from other countries will come in and end up being terrorists or will come into the country and take their jobs. This fear instantly invokes them to try and find protection from it. Trump's remarks are beneficial in the way that it could bring safety against the immigrants who we fear, but also brings in a detrimental effect. Trumps Muslim Ban is detrimental because of the hate crimes that would follow Donald Trump's
In The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury posits that becoming independent is shown as a brave, meaningful choice to take, whether it is for happiness, a worthy cause, or a peaceful life. It is shown that not following the norm and becoming an independent individual can lead to new, enthralling realizations, compelling philosophies, or true happiness. In this science-fiction novel, Bradbury explores this theme recurringly, more specifically in “Silent Towns”, “-And The Moon Be Still As Bright”, and “The Martian”. Written about the future, spanning the years from 1999 to 2026, The Martian Chronicles takes place on both Earth and Mars, telling the tale of the colonization of different planets and the annihilation of all humans on Earth through war. During the process of discovering these planets, human characteristics are prevalent, especially those concerning the great courage of independence and the bravery of individuality.
In the article “Modern-Day Witch Hunts”, Jamie Dailey focuses the attention on problems that Muslim Americans commonly face on a day-to-day basis. He first paints a picture by comparing the violent acts performed on Muslims to the Salem Witch trial in 1692. The Salem Witch trials resulted in 19 deaths of innocent individuals, because they were accused of witchcraft. Dailey goes on to explain in America, the type of persecution Muslims endure has many forms. A more recent controversy towards this religion involves the building of the Ground Zero Mosque in central New York. The name of this building is very misleading, especially to the eyes of an American. Even though this structure is actually built a few blocks away from where the former World Trade Center stood, problems have still risen from the public. Americans often mistake Muslims as the group of people who had performed acts of terrorism on American soil, when it was actually an Islamic group known as Al Qaeda. Mosques all across the United States started being vandalized by people protesting against their religion. This article shows how irrational fear can corrupt the thoughts of people.
In every society, throughout all of time fear is present. It is a an evolutionary instinct thought to have kept us alive, throughout the darkest moments in human history. However as time has progressed fear has had an unintended consequences on society, including the suffusion of incomprehension. During the Salem Witch Trials and Cold War a large sense of fear overcame these societies causing tragedy and misinformation to become commonplace. It is in these societies that it is clear that fear is needed to continue a trend of ignorance. Although bias is thought to be essential to injustice, fear is crucial to the perpetuation of ignorance because it blinds reason, suppresses the truth and creates injustice.
"Culture of Fear" is a book that describes that it is our perceptions that dangers have increased, and so much the actual level of risk. Glassner explains in all of his chapters how people and organizations use our fears as a way to increase their profit. Glassner also states about the prices we pay for our panics and all the time and energy we spend worrying. Americans are afraid because of the media's broadband expose of crime, violence, drugs and diseases.
This summer I read 2 works by Ray Bradbury. Both were very good and were written with very good descriptions. The novels were Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles. Actually The Martian Chronicles was actually more like a group of short stories put together. One thing both these books had in common was with what the Author Mr. Bradbury had in mind while writing these. He had the future set in his mind. And he saw the deepest of the future. An example of this is how he had us going to war and mars by the year 2000.
...arted committing terrorist attacks on the U.S. and other countries. Fear shouldn’t make you do irrational things, like the mass genocides that occurred during World War Two.
People who engage in relationships with someone from the Muslim population are harassed for having a romantic affiliation with someone who they would call a “terrorist”. Along with getting called horrific names, many have become objects of suspicion. Going through security, boarding an airplane and sitting next to someone without that person feeling worried or acting suspicious of them, is starting to become very uncommon. Rephrase this, it gets confusing: They think that since part of the Muslim population did something horrible, that they need to suspect the same from all of them. With that suspicion, it causes all American’s to get a sense of fear towards Muslim’s....
During the twentieth century American faced the industrial age. Many new inventions came in the making such as the atomic bomb and satellites. America was also faced with the space age and the Cold war, along with racial tensions and religious intolerances. All these events leading up to 1950, inspired Ray Bradbury to write The Martian Chronicles, where Bradbury combined the power struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union with the new rocket technology and space exploration, and created for the readers, the possible outcomes as technology took over the lives of humans. In The Martian Chronicles, Bradbury first started with how the people on Mars lived peacefully with their environment, and allowed technology to better their lives,
by Ray Bradbury, the theme is that change is unstoppable, and people just have to adapt to change. Bradbury illustrates this through characterization, and plot. In the short story, a family of five come to Mars from Earth.
Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles shows us not only a different world from Earth and Mars, but also the future of America. Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles depicts the colonization of Mars in terms of the colonizationof America. The story is similar to what America experienced, such as thediscovery of America, the invasion of Indian colonies, and the new civilization.Dana's response paper also discussed the colonization of Mars.Other critics also pointed out that Bradbury's theme in the story was death.Through futuristic imagination, Bradbury applies connections to American historyand the issue of death in his story while raising concerns and warnings of thefuture.
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.
Similar to the Salem Witch Trials, these fears had no proper foundation, but after these brutal attacks, many people didn’t know what else to do, but be afraid. Comparable to “The Crucible,” the public showed great fear and they were very suspicious of the people they believed were suspects or possible perpetrators. People that expressed Islamophobia, which was an “exaggerated fear, hatred, and hostility toward Islam and Muslims” grew in numbers (Gallup). The 9/11 attacks sparked a fear and hysteria against innocent American Muslims, which was very unintelligent, due to the fact that this was not based on the malice or terror of these Muslims, but actually their connection through religion with the
Judgement is very important when it comes to making decisions whether they are big or small. One’s judgement not only affects themselves but the other people around them. Fear can alter and impede judgement. In Lord of the Flies written by William Golding the boys are gathered as a tribe and they begin chanting. The boys have been afraid of the beast and they would do anything to protect themselves from it. Simon emerges from the forest and the boys are fearful that the beast is Simon. Despite how close Simon was to the boys, he was still torn and ripped apart by all of them because they were all affected by fear. Together the boys chant, “‘Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!’ Now out of the terror rose another desire, thick, urgent, blind” (Golding 152). Judgement is easily impaired by fear and causes people to make rash decisions. The boys knew that it was Simon, however, their fear of the beast overruled their minds and they were affected by their fear. People can gain power in the fictional world and the real world. The terrifying event that occured on September 9, 2001 is also known as 9/11. Around the country, people were unsure and fearful about the events that had just occurred in front of their eyes. These attacks had violently hurt people and made them scared of their own country. People were traumatized and were very affected by these horrible actions. Pandolfo writes,
Astronaut Mark Watney is stuck on Mars and has nowhere to go. The situation is dire, and his time is running out. Mark used to be happy on Earth, but that’s not the case anymore. Mark and his team get seperated in a tragic accident, and Mark is left on Mars. Isolated, Mark is stranded on Mars and has no way of getting out. The Martian is a interesting book that is as interesting as the author. The book executes Sci-Fi well with cool real life facts and implements humor very nicely to make readers keep turning the page for more.
Throughout one’s life, he or she will experience many situations where a lesson is learned, or a fear is amassed. One person may be able to deal with such terrors easily, while another will suffer because of the dread and panic that now haunts them. The poem ‘My Fear’ by Lawrence Raab discusses the haunting situation of fear following someone, and the personification, imagery, and tone of the speaker all provide depth to this seemingly innocent poem and allow one to truly appreciate how fear and troubles affect him or her.