By Ray
Bradbury
 The
short story was originally published
in 1950 in The Martian Chronicles
 During this time in the United States,
people were especially fearful of nuclear
weapons.
“The development of
the atomic bomb will
end all war or all
men”
•Science fiction became a
popular genre for film
and text.
•Fear of both nuclear war,
and explosions of
technology contributed
widely to the plot themes
of many types of media.
 The
poem that occurs in the story is a real
poem, written by Sara Teasdale in the
1920s.
 She manages to convey a sense of
detachment:
• The earth does not know, or care, that mankind
has come and gone.
• Disturbing picture of indifference.
• Post-apocalypse setting inspired by WWI.
 Let’s
read the story together as ACTIVE
readers.
 Here’s what we’re looking for:
• Figurative Language
 Simile
 Metaphor
 Personification
 Imagery
 Here’s what
• Setting
• Irony
we’ll talk about next:
 The
setting is the time and location at
which a story takes place.
 EXAMPLE: What is the setting of Harry
Potter…
PRESENT DAY
HOGWARTS
 August
4, 2026
 Post-Apocalyptic (after nuclear war)
California
•Deserted
neighborhood
•Everyone and
everything is
dead
•A family home
•Technology is
the only thing
still “alive” here
Find indications of the setting of
the story.
 One
of the trickiest terms we will learn
all year.
 IRONY is the use of words to express
something different from, and often
opposite to, their literal meaning.
• IRONY is NOT a synonym for COINCIDENCE!!
 We
are going to have to look at the text as a
whole to find examples of IRONY.
• While there are many ironic aspects of the story, they
are harder to pinpoint because you have to look at
the BIG PICTURE in order to find them.
 Let’s
go through the text together to find
examples of IRONY:
See if you and your partner can find irony in the
story with regards to NATURE and
TECHNOLOGY. Also, see if you can find the
IRONY in the POEM.
The mechanical house is a representation of what
is wrong with humanity in the future. Man’s
constant need to improve his technology blinds
his view in being able to see that his own
technology was replacing him.
 The house cooks, cleans and even keeps time for
the family. But as man dies, his machines aren't
even aware of his absence, and at man’s
destruction we see how thoughtless all the
technology, which occupies the house, is.
 We are destroyed by our most awful invention,
the atomic bomb.

Teasdale’s poem describes a world in which nature
wakes up after man’s destruction not even noticing
of our disappearance. It shows how we are just
temporary rulers of this planet.
 Because of our obsession with war, nature will once
again have the planet like it did so long ago.
 Man’s constant struggle for more creative ways of
destroying himself has gone so far that it has
actually destroyed that which has existed before
us: nature. No robins sing, spring never comes over
the ruined city and the only rain that falls is
mechanical. Machine has taken the place of nature.

• The closest thing to soft rains that fall are the
mechanical rains of the sprinkler system that
goes off when the house catches fire.
• The poem, which seems pessimistic, is actually
very optimistic compared to the reality.
• An example of the folly of thoughtless
technological development.