There Will Come Soft Rains

Science-fiction texts often use vivid storytelling so as to allow the reader to grasp an overall idea and gain an insight into a world that is often filled with chaos and disorder. There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury is a story that takes place in the future but takes its name from a 19th century writer. It is a story that takes a science-fiction plot and embroils it with real life moral and philosophical concerns. Bradbury’s protagonist is a house standing alone in a world destroyed by nuclear war in the 1950’s. When the story was written, the fear of devastating effects of nuclear war was painfully clear in peoples’ minds. With the use of narrative elements such as setting, language conventions, tone and structure, Bradbury is able to communicate his representation of an event, as well as his argument about the concern of humanity being brought to an end by our own ignorance. He is able to communicate this message to the reader whilst depicting a world in which human beings have been destroyed, rather than saved, by their own technology after the event of a
There Will Come Soft Rains has a post-apocalyptic - inspired by World War 1- and technological setting – a futuristic house. The house can be seen as somewhat of a ‘protector’ of the family and Bradbury uses lively descriptions for the setting ‘...books that talked, beds that warmed and made themselves, fires that built themselves in the fireplaces of evenings, were in the house and living there was a contentment.’ Bradbury has used this technique to show humans’ dependence on technology – the house does simple things like making a bed – and eventually how they were destroyed by their own technology. Further to this, the house can also be seen to be the master and the family its’ willing slaves. This shows how humans are becoming so dependent on technology that they are no longer able to perform simple tasks for