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- August 2057: There Will Come Soft Rains is the second of three chapters set in 2057 that end The Martian Chronicles and deal with circumstances on Mars and Earth related to human development and management of science and technology. Bradbury's views on how an arms race led to nuclear war are expressed in the last chapter October 2057: The Million-Year Picnic. In addition, as mentioned above, the author expresses the view that a human cultural inclination to dominate with its values for science and technology set antagonistically against nature, religion and art will lead civilization towards its own self-destruction is expressed in the chapter June 2032: —And the Moon Be Still as Bright.
- Ray Bradbury said the drafting of There Will Come Soft Rains was motivated by his fear of the destruction that could result from nuclear war during the Cold War, as the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb on August 29, 1949 and the United States' announcement that it was starting development of a hydrogen bomb on January 31, 1950.[8] In addition, the author was deeply concerned, during the time he wrote the story, that atomic bomb development was reckless because scientists running an atomic bomb test performed by the United States at the Pacific Proving Grounds during 1946 weren't quite sure whether the earth wouldn't catch on fire.[9]The story's anti-war message is conveyed in several ways. First, Bradbury gave the short story the title of Sara Teasdale's anti-war poem There Will Come Soft Rains first published in 1918 during World War I and the 1918 flu pandemic. As in Teasdale's poem, Bradbury's story is devoid of human beings since they have all been killed. Second, the story chronicles the horrific results of a nuclear bomb blast. In addition, the story's events in The Martian Chronicles version occur on the eve of, and on August 5, 2057 (2026 in the first edition) to commemorate August 5, 1945, the date in the United States that the country detonated a nuclear bomb over Hiroshima, Japan during World War II, the first ever attack that used a nuclear weapon.
- Humankind's separation from the natural world and the conflicts that result from the separation is a theme in many Bradbury works, particularly, The Martian Chronicles. The very existence of the McClellan house establishes an antagonistic relationship between the family and its house with the natural world that illustrates the Man against Nature literary theme for conflict. (See the Characters section.)In The Martian Chronicles, the conflict-ridden house of the McClellans' of There Will Come Soft Rains contrasts, in the chapter February 2030: Ylla, with the house of the Martian K's. The K's house is the product of a Martian culture that cherishes life and has operated in harmony with nature for one thousand years. In the chapter June 2032: —And the Moon Be Still as Bright, the mutineer of the Fourth Expedition, Jeff Spender, suggests to the expedition's captain that the human inability to harmonize what he calls life – nature, religion, and art, with science and technology and the urge to dominate will end in the self-destruction of mankind, foreshadowing the catastrophe of 2057:'And the men of Mars realized that in order to survive they would have to forgo asking that one question any longer: Why live? Life was its own answer. Life was the propagation of more life and the living of as good a life as possible. The Martians realized that they asked the question Why live at all? at the height of some period of war and despair, when there was no answer. But once the civilization calmed, quieted, and wars ceased, the question became senseless in a new way. Life was now good and needed no arguments.' His captain responds: It sounds as if the Martians were quite naïve. And Spender replies back: Only when it paid to be naïve. They quit trying too hard to destroy everything, to humble everything.
- The recitation of Sara Teasdale's poem carries with it the point of view that the universe is indifferent to life. (See There Will Come Soft Rains – Influences.) The serenity in her poetic settings for swallows, frogs, and robins that must eat other creatures in order to survive, occurs because war is not in their natures and not due to an absolute absence of violence. In an interview, Bradbury's view of such indifference does not reflect a belief in the viewpoint of science. In affirming his belief in Darwin and God together and that all creation is a mystery, he asked himself the question, How come there's life on Earth? His answer was, It just happened. We just don't know.[10]
- In Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles the destruction of Allendale, California during the summer of 2057 is an event of a Great World War that envelops Earth that started during November 2036, presumably ending the United States as a nation. Radio transmissions from Earth to Mars continue until they cease some time in October 2057, as told in the chapter October 2057: The Million-Year Picnic.
- The description of the McClellan home that provides for automated meal preparation and clean-up, household cleaning, and entertainment indicate a very comfortable and enjoyable lifestyle and a very high standard of living for, what readers of the Collier's version know and what Chronicles readers are to assume, is a middle class family. The family's comforts are acquired during a war in which the United States was a combatant for nearly twenty-one years.
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