There Will Come Soft Rain Literary Analysis

When Reading Bradbury’s Stories, it is easy to tell that he uses a large amount of tools to get his point across. These range from simple metaphors and similes, to more complex one like characterization, personification, and imagery. Each of these tools help build on to the realism which is present in all of his stories. He shows them in simple, subtle ways like “hints”, but he also sometimes just comes right out and says it. It is through these that we are able to put ourselves in the story, and truly feel the message he is trying to get through to us.

Ray Bradbury uses a lot of tools throughout his stories! The stories he used the most obvious amount of tools in were “There Will Come Soft Rains”, “A Sound of Thunder”, and “The Veldt”. The

more easily seen tools in these stories are personification, and word choice. A great example of personification is shown when it is said that,"hot water whirled them down a metal throat which digested and flushed them away to the distant sea. " (“There Will Come Soft Rains”) It is well known that sinks can not swallow or digest. These are living characteristics given to a non-living object, otherwise known as personification! Word choice is another tool used because of the meaning and visual it creates just by using sensory words and detailed descriptions. The solid effects of well selected words on our imagination can be seen here,"That sun. He could feel it on his neck, still, like a hot paw. And the lions. And the smell of blood." ("The Veldt") This detailed description is allowing us to put ourselves in the story, into the hot sun, smelling the raw scent of blood. He uses his tools to attract the reader, and keep them interested.
Something that is seen consistently throughout the stories is characterization; which is what really helps us relate to the character.

Characterization is when the author leaves small little “clues” as to the appearance, personality, etc of the character(s). This can be shown through dialogue, word choice describing appearance, the actions the character makes, etc. Characterization can also be used alongside personification to give non-living objects personality! "I've met my match and admit it. This is too much for me" –Eckels (“A Sound of Thunder”). This quote is a piece of Eckel’s, a character from “A Sound of Thunder”, characterization. It shows that he was once brave, but now he is frightened and willing to admit he was wrong. Another example is, “He listened to the faint push of his soft shoes through autumn leaves with satisfaction, and whistled a cold quiet whistle” (“The Pedestrian”) This is showing us something that makes Mr. Leonard Mead happy! He is simply enjoy the sound of his feet pushing through the leaves as he is walking. Even though this is a subtle detail, it plays a large role in Leonard’s characterization, because it is showing us his thought process, which is part of who he is. Here characterization is used with personification, “It quivered at each sound, the house did. If a sparrow brushed a window, the shade snapped up.” (“There Will Come Soft Rains”). This is showing that the house is paranoid. Even though the house is not alive, it has living characteristics, giving it characterization! Every character is in a setting, and this setting is our

imagery.
Imagery is the mental picture that gets painted into our mind. It is created through descriptive details and selective word choice. The word choice is the base of imagery. The imagery is where we place ourselves in the story; it is where the story is taking place, and what is the scene in our mind. Most of the time adjectives are used to create imagery, but metaphors and similes also contribute as they give us something to compare the scene to. To illustrate this concept, "an old salt sea, moist grasses, and flowers the color of blood." ("A Sound of Thunder"), this imagery is also word choice, because it is so descriptive while also allowing us to experience this "ancient" world in a first person perspective, as if we are really there! We know the smell of salt water, most grass, and can visualize a blood red flower in our mind! Another example is the T-Rex and the noise it makes. It is described using metaphors, similes, imagery, and word choice (sensory words). This can be seen here, " a great evil god,", "Each lower leg was a piston", "Its armored flesh glittered like a thousand green coins." ("A Sound of Thunder") All of this imagery is created by metaphors, and similes. It gives great detail and emphasis, which allows us to envision this terrifying creature. As a matter of fact, none of this vivid imagery could have been done without word choice. The author, Ray Bradbury, made sure to use things we could envision in our mind like the glittering of “a thousand green coins”; this is something we can envision, and is therefore a great example of imagery as well as word choice! All of these tools assisted in letting us realize the realism present in his stories. This is how Bradbury hooked us, and led us into realizing the true meaning behind his stories.
Notably, you may have noticed that in reading each of these 4 short stories, Bradbury ends with a similar theme of technology having a negative effect on the human population, and even leading to our imminent deaths. The underlying idea of the stories is that our technology, once it has advanced beyond our control, will ruin us. In "The Veldt", the nursery comes to life, and the children instruct it to not let the parents turn the nursery off ,"Don't let them do it!" wailed Peter at the ceiling, as if he was talking to the house, the nursery. "Don't let Father kill everything." He turned to his father. "Oh, I hate you!" -Peter ("The Veldt"); this results in the parents getting locked in the nursery and eaten by lions “The lions. Mr. Hadley looked at his wife and they turned and looked back at the beasts edging slowly forward crouching, tails stiff. Mr. and Mrs. Hadley screamed. And suddenly they realized why those other screams bad sounded familiar.” (“The Veldt”) In "A Sound of Thunder", a time machine is used to go back in time to the age of the dinosaurs; Eckels steps off the walkway and squishes a butterfly, which destroyed the future as the knew it and changed it for the worse. in "The Pedestrian", Mr. Mead is out walking, which is considered abnormal, as he should be inside watching his viewing screen. he gets arrested by a car, and sent to a psychiatric hospital. In "There Will Come Soft Rains", the humans got nuked, and their house survived and took care of life on its own, and then burned to the ground, and that was the official end of humans and our technology. Each of these stories share the idea of our technology getting out of hand.
All of this is easy for us to imagine as Bradbury used tools that relate to our modern day lives, and let us see that we are already on that path to destruction. His imagery lets us see the world we are living in and to create scenes in our minds, that do not always include people, because this is what will happen if our technology takes over. His word choice created sensory feelings that allowed us to hear, see, feel, taste, and even touch these worlds in our minds. I additionally helps us to incorporate our understanding of the text, to better allow us to understand how and why we were in those situations. His personification helped to emphasize on what is happening to our technology once it has advanced and when we are not here. Additionally, characterization gave us emotion, which gave the stories deeper meaning and gave us a better understanding and showed us the real effect our personalities and actions could have in the future. This is how he subtly worked his theme into our minds without us realizing the big picture we were getting and understanding.
In conclusion, the tools used in the Bradbury short stories are what created the whole story when pieced together. Sometimes he told us things straight forwardly, other times we had to infer based upon small clues hidden in the text. Every part of it was not only designed to keep the reader engaged, but to also send us a warning about letting our future get out of hand. The stories were very descriptive and realistic, and for that reason, we truly do understand the full meaning of the stories.