Ray Bradbury's There Will Come Soft Rain

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“Insurance is payable, as are the water, gas, and light bills.” (Bradbury 121) In the short story “There Will Come Soft Rains” the reader is introduced to a futuristic setting in which there is an automated home that does human activities such as cleaning, cooking, and event planning. At one point of the story the house mentions that the bills for the house are payable, indicating that the owners of the house are in a financially stable condition. There is no indication to how well off the McClellan family is, but the reader knows that they are not struggling to make ends meet. At eight o’clock the house says, “Eight-one, tick-tock, eight-one o’clock, off to school, off to work, run, run, run, eight-one,” (Bradbury 121) which suggests that…show more content…
There are many pieces of evidence that point towards this conclusion throughout the entire short story. The first piece of evidence is that author Ray Bradbury says, “At night the ruined city gave off a radioactive glow which could be seen for miles.” (Bradbury 121) All nuclear weapons have radioactivity emitted from them. The author also states, “The house stood alone in a city of rubble and ashes,” (Bradbury 121) indicating that the whole area surrounding the house had been destroyed on a large scale. Finally, the last piece of evidence states, “The entire west face of the house was black, save for five places. Here the silhouette in paint of a man mowing a lawn. Here, as in a photograph, a woman bent to pick up flowers. Still farther over, their images burned on wood in one titanic instant, a small boy, hands flung into the air; higher up, the image of a thrown ball, and opposite him a girl, hands raised to catch the ball which never came down.” (Bradbury 122) This quote is very similar to many of the events from a real life atomic bomb attack in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When the nuclear bombs dropped, permanent shadows had been left from victims who had been burned from the heat. This is the case in the story; the McClellan family had been victims to instant burning from the nuclear bomb heat which resulted in their print being left on the wall of
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