Thursday, October 29, 2009

"There Will Come Soft Rains" - Essay

Please write an essay about Ray Bradburry's "There Will Come Soft Rains" using the same structure we have used twice before (SCASI). You should be able to come close to finishing this essay in class, but, if you need additional time, may submit your full essay before Wednesday.

Have a good long weekend!

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  4. There Will Come Soft Rains.

    There Will Come Soft Rains is a short story written by Ray Bradbury in 1950. Ray Bradbury was an American writer. He was very famous and around 20 of his stories were used in films.

    There Will Come Soft Rains is set in Allendale, California in the only house left standing on August 4th 2026 till August 5th 2026. It is set in a land that has been destroyed by a nuclear bomb. It is written in a dark forgotten land that is roamed by animals that scavenge the area surrounding. The atmosphere set is dull and sad. There is a lot of death involved in there will come soft rain.

    Characters in this story are not human but instead robotic. There is the house that is a main character but in the house there are more characters. There are the mice that are total clean freaks. These mice are out of metal and rubber. Then there is the main robot that controls everything. There are I am sure a lot of other robots doing other chores around the house that aren’t mentioned directly.

    The story starts off with the clock ticking and telling the ‘owners’ of this house to wake up but of course no one wakes up as there is no one in the house. There are robots in the house giving out dates, telling what the times is, there is a robot making breakfast, and there is a robot trying to wake up the ‘owners’. It is not clearly stated weather this is all done by one robot or several. The house does its usual chores on its own till it gets disturb by a dog who enters the house ( the house letting it in probably because it recognized it) and leaves foot prints that annoys the mice who straight away clean it up. The house makes the dog food but then the dog gets excited and dies. The house then prepares a sort of afternoon tea but with martini a cigar and cards. It then sets up a room with colorful animals projected on the wall probably for the youngest child in the family. At 9:05 the robots choose a poem for ‘Mrs McClellan’ as she is not there to choose it. At ten the house started to die a fire burned down the entire house and it exploded. The last thing the house said was “ ‘Today is August 26, 2026, today is August 26, 2026, today is…’ ”

    The short story There Will Come Soft Rains is a story told by a narrator. The writer tells the story in the present tense giving the reader the feeling of actually being there in the house. There are no characters in the story so Ray Bradbury gives the robots in the house life so it seems more real to the reader. He uses personification like; ‘breakfast stove gave a hissing sigh’ cookers don’t hiss and ‘Now the fire lay in bed’ is another one and fire cannot lie down. Would the house not talk I think then that the story wouldn’t come across as self sustaining and that it is all on its own cooking and preparing stuff for the dead families, who once upon a time lived in the deserted house.

    Ideas in the story I think starts off with the fact that Ray Bradbury wanted to send a message across to the reader. In 1946 there was a nuclear bomb in Japan which scared a lot of people so Ray Bradbury tried to show people what a nuclear bomb could do and that he believed that there was going to be another nuclear bomb in the future that would destroy the whole of California. So the fact that there was a nuclear bomb attack and that the whole world in that time were all trying to have there own sort of nuclear weapon is one of the reasons why this story was written.

    So in conclusion this was my favorite story we have done in class so far. It was the most exciting and interesting story so far. I loved the way it was written. It was funny and it was written about something that could really happen and it wasn’t just a fake story but instead it was about something that could seriously happen so it was more then just a simple story.

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  6. There Will Come Soft Rains - ESSAY


    The story has been written by Ray Bradbury who was an American in 1950. The setting of the story is in Allendale, California on August 4th in 2026. Set in a house, which is automated by some robot which controls the house and helps the people that live there, by waking them up, giving breakfast at a certain time, morning prayers, giving them a certain time when to go to work, basically helping the people throughout their days.


    The characters in the story ‘There Will Come Soft Rains’ are actually dead, but in my opinion, the robot hasn’t noticed that, so the robot continues with their daily lives they had before their deaths. There was supposed to be a family of two parents, with a daughter and a son, as well as the robot, who now became part of the family.


    The plot of the story starts of with the clock ticking in the early morning and waking up the people who live(d) in the house, the people in the house do not wake up, as they are dead but the robot does not notice that. In the house, they have robots that make breakfast, who are giving the time and date as well as waking up the people. The house gets disturbed by a dog who enters the house, and the mice clean up the dogs footprints and don’t seem to be pleasant with that. Later on in the day, the house would make some sort of Afternoon tea time, but instead of using tea and cookies, as we, normal people do, the house prepares the afternoon tea with Martini, Cigar and Cards. When the time ticks at 10:00 the house starts burning and it explodes.


    The style of the story ‘There Will Come Soft Rains’ is created with enough mystery and suspense used. The story is told is present tense which is described well enough to imagine the image smoothly in your head. There is also a lot of personification mentioned in the story, for example “Now the fire lay in bed” which really is very surreal, as fire is not able to lie down in bed, especially in bed. In my opinion, the mood of the story is very miserable too.


    My thoughts and feelings towards the story were very understandable, as in those times, in 1946 approximately – there was a certain bomb in Japan which killed many people and many people were scared for this to happen again. So the writer most probably wanted to send a message across to the readers that he has been believing for a long time, that there would be another bomb later on in future, but many people might not have believing him and so didn’t take any notice of it. But as soon as the story was published he wanted to send that certain message across to the readers to make them believe in what he thought and that it might later on in future, ruin the Californian beauty.
    So I feel very understandable to that, but at the same time I personally think its crazy how the writer was so sure that later on in future something would happen with that certain bomb. But apart from that – I had really enjoyed this story, I actually read it two times, because I didn’t really understand at first, because it all seemed to me very confusing but after I have seen the movie, I got a much better image.

    By Christina Lomakina

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  7. There Will Come Soft Rains - Essay

    There Will Come Soft Rains is written by Ray Bradbury. It was written in 1950. Briefly the story is about a house that was made purposely to survive a nuclear bomb. The inhabitants had all died from the bomb and the house is still working alone. The house is pre-programmed to do exactly what the owners say and they had pre-programmed it to a specific schedule.

    The story is based in the future, actually it is based in Allendale California in 2026. The author is imagining the technology in the future from the point in time when he wrote it.

    The characters of the story are the people of the house, the owners. All we know about them is that they were preparing for the disaster and built an atomic bomb shelter house to protect themselves. We also know that the atomic bomb shelter they built did withstand the explosion but unfortunately the humans didn’t. The main characters are the dog and house. The house is made specifically to withstand the bomb as I said before, but it is also programmed to take care of the people. It was pre-programmed by the owners to do exactly what they wanted it to do. It had a schedule and it had to do what it said at the time it was told to do it. The dog on the other hand is just an ordinary dog who is looking for something to eat or drink. The dog is dying and actually dies at the doorstep of the house.

    The plot of the story is an atomic bomb that dropped in 2026 that destroyed all of California. The only house left was the atomic bomb shelter house built to withstand atomic bombs, which it did and was the only house standing. The people of the house had unfortunately died in the explosion long ago. The house is pre-programmed to do all the work it was told to do by its owners, but since they died it has to do the things on the schedule only. The house had a schedule made by the owners to tell it exactly what to do at the exact time of the day. At the end the house destroys itself because of mother nature.

    The story is extremely descriptive and uses many descriptive words to describe the house. It is a very different story because it shows the end of California and it is sad because of the house still doing all of the work it was meant to do when the people were alive. I think the story is an interesting story because it shows the thoughts of the people in the past and how they imagined the future. In fact the people were mostly right because that is the technology used nowadays.

    I think the theme is a bit depressing because of the fact that many humans had died in the bomb. It is also very sad because of the house doing all the work and also the animals dying. It shows how they did imagine the future well but they didn’t imagine the people alive. They imagined humanity all gone. Only robots lived. The ending is a bit sad because of the fire. It ended the story in a sad and unfortunate manner.

    I really liked this short story, it is one of my favorites. I like the plot of the story and the unfortunate events look rather natural and doesn’t look like they are a big error in mother nature but just an unfortunate accident. Also the story expresses the future in somebody’s point of view. This shows that people thought that with technology, humans were killing themselves and if they continued they would destroy the world.

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  8. Samantha Cassar Ellis
    There Will Come Soft Rains ( SCASI )

    Thier will come soft rains is a short story written by Ray Bradbury in 1950. He was a very famous and succesful American writer and 20 of his stories were used and made into films.

    Thier will come soft rains is set in a house on August 4th 2026, In Allendale California, Obviously in the future.
    We cannot really say their are charecters in this story, the closest thing to a charecter is the House. The house is the only thing that speaks and or moves in the story. No other charecters are included because every human bieng is dead.

    The action of this story start’s when a tree smashed threw the kitchen window in the house and start’s a fire. The fire keep’s getting bigger and bigger and even thought the house fights back with some sort of green gas and water nothing works becaue the fire gets to all the machanics in the attic and blows the house up.

    The style of this story usues loads of personification eg ‘now the fire lay in bed’ obviously fire cannot lie down. The story is told by a narrartor and in the present tense which make’s us feel asif were there while all of this is happenening. Since their are no charecters in the story besides robotic animals and a house the writer makes the house speak and act which makes us think there are charecters.

    The ideas of this story are basically about a nucleour explosion happening and wiping out everything houses, animals and humans. The only thing left standing is one house that keeps going threw it’s daily routines day by day. Another idea is that Ray Bradbury is showing us that if something happened to all of man kind and we all died nature would still go on without a care in the world showing us how little we mean to mother nature.

    This story was by far the best i have read so far because of the ‘wierdness’ in having no charecters expect a house. Also i found it interesting it bieng set in the future and that we’re not that far away from having houses like that now.

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  9. THERE WILL COME SOFT RAINS

    by:Sara Welander 9B

    This short, sci-fi story is by Ray Bradbury in the year of 1950. It is based on a poem in the 1920's called 'There will come soft rains' by Saera Teasdale.

    The setting of the story is in a robotic house in Allendale, California the year of 2026 August 5th. But the surroundings are much different that you would think it is. The city is destroyed, everything burnt down, giving the atmosphere a radioactive glow. That house is the only one standing, half of the houses paint is black while the other is a perfect white paint.

    In "There will come soft rains" there are really no characters. There is only the robotic house and the little robots inside it e.g. the robot mice. In part of the story there enters a dog, but in a short time it eventually dies. So there are any more characters than that.

    There is a lot of action in the story concerning what the robots are doing in the house. At different times of the day it is doing different functions all for the benefits of the humans that were supposed to be living in the house at the time e.g. making meals, taking out toys for the kids, cleaning the floors and dishes, telling poems to the family and any other entertainment needed for the humans. Then by the end of the story the house slowly dies and all the robots become chaotic and panicked as, they too, slowly die.

    The story is told in a very descriptive way when it comes to the aturho describing the surroundings and actions. But when the robot house is talking it has a kind of 'sing-song' style of telling the orders for the humans e.g. 'Eight-one, tick-tock, eight-one o'clock, off to school, off to work, run, run, eight-one!'. It all rhymes if try and say it aloud. The rest of the story, i gotta say, is described beautifully. It contains rich and useful diction which create a perfect image in your mind of the house and its actions.

    "There will come soft rains" has a theme of loneliness, horror, and mystery. If you also look deeper into the story you can see that the morale of the story is how technology is harmful to humanity and that nature will always get the better of us. No matter how hard we try, nature will always have the most power.

    The conclusion of the short story is that seeing all this future, from Ray Bradbury's eyes, it might look exciting with the robots and peculiar houses, but it will actually all be a generation of dread, fright, and loneliness. Personally, i think this was a terrific and beautifully-written piece of fiction. The outstanding description and suspense of the robots and the house. Every reader is thrilled by the plot and determined to read everything to the very end. I know for one, that the whole class were really curious of what had happened to this city, Allendale, California, and if this in fact, is what the future is going to be like. I certainly would like to read more from this author since he has great ideas and a lot of imagination from someone so far back.

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  11. There Will Come Soft Rains - Essay.

    I will write about story which called "There will come soft rains" it was written by Ray Bradbury in 1950. Whole this story based on one poem by Sara Teasdale which has the same name "There will come soft rains"

    The story takes place in the city of Allendate, California and it starts in August 4, 2026 after a nuclear war."The house stood alone in a city of rubble and ashes"

    All caracters are dead in this story after a nuclear war. However i think that author showing us house and all robots in it like a real people that they have their own live and job to do. "metal throat which digested and flushed food away" "The attic brain", tiny robot mice was cleaning whole house,even the fire was shown like a real character "But the fire was clever.It had sent flames up" I think everything was alive in this house.

    This story starts at the morning at 7 o'clock and finishes at the evening. Voice-clock sang and called everyone for a breakfast. As we already know there isnt anyone so house cleaned all food and dishes after a while by its own. Next he called kids to the school and parents for the work. After it was a time for cleaning, playing bridge, children hour, dinner, bath time, bed time, then robot was choosing a poem to read for Mrs. McClellan by its own from the favorites. This was going on everyday all the same things were happening around the house. It tells us that the robot was programmed by family which lived in it before. In this evening something happened which werent in dayly plan and it destroyed the house. "A falling tree bough crashed through the kitchen window. Cleaning solvent, bottled, shattered over the stove. The room was ablaze in an instant!" House tried to save himself but he couldnt do it and at last there was huge explosion and house died.

    Author wrote this story in present which is very good i think because u can imagine everything step by step what is going on in the story. Thiis story was written in 1950 and its about future so he made up many stuff which makes it very intresting however some of it we have now. Personification was used in this story too like "The attic brain"-attic cant have a brain "fire lay in beds"- fire cant lay in beds, "bed veins and capillaries"- house cant have any of it.

    There will come soft rains was written after a real bomb attack. I think that Ray Bradbury wanted to show what could happened after this attack. Maybe he wanted to show what all this wars can do to human population. All people can die from it and just robots will be alive and no one will notice that people are gone.

    I like this story because its really interesting and exiting. Author described all thing so good that sometimes i felt that im in the story and everything happens around me. It was written long time ago and for me its interesting to know what people thought will be now in the future.

    Polina

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  12. “There Will Come Soft Rains” is a short science fiction story written by Ray Bradbury in 1950. The title comes from the poem “There Will Come Soft Rains” written in 1920, which is mentioned in the story, and the poem is very similar to the story because Ray Bradbury took the poem as a base for his story. The story shows how perfect the houses in future are going to be, because in USA in 1950’s there was an idealistic time where everything had to be perfect.

    The setting is in future, August 5th 2026. It sets in California, the city of Allendale. The setting proves the fact that it is a science fiction story.

    I think that the main character is the house, because the writer used a lot of personification towards the house, and everything was about the house, so that is why it is the main character. There are also people who died because of the nuclear explosion, and there is the dog that dies eventually in the story and the cleaning mice.

    The story is about a day after all the people died because of the nuclear attack. It is about how the house serves the people in their daily life, and the house is unaware that the people died.

    The style of the story differs, because it starts off as being a casual day in future which is quite similar to the casual days we have, and then it becomes an unusual day because the house gets destroyed because of the fire.

    The idea of the story is to predict what life is going to be like in future. It predicts that the house will be able to talk, and do all the common actions so that the people would live happy idealistic lives without doing things they don’t enjoy such as cleaning or working.

    I liked the story, and I think it is a very unusual type of story because it is quite old, and it feels that it is not written nowadays, also I enjoyed that the story was idealistic, and there were not too many characters.

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  13. There will come soft rains

    There will come soft rains is a short story written by Ray Bradbruy in 1950, just after World War 2. The name comes from Sara Teasdale's poem, There Will Come Soft Rains. It shows how a robot controls the house, after a nuclear explosion, when every one is dead, and no one is living there. The robot continues with all the day to day actions as if nothing has happened.

    It is set in Allendale, California in 2026. This is just after a nuclear bomb is used on the USA. It starts at 7:00am and ends at the very beginning of the next day, 12:00 pm.

    There is only one character, which isn't even living, in this story, the computer. It is barely even a character, although it seems to very much want to protect the house. It won't let anything in without the password and sends something to clean when ever something is dirty.

    It all starts in the morning when the house starts cooking breakfast and waking up the people in the house, who aren't there. It then tells them to go to school and to work. Then, at 9:15, small robotic cleaning mice clean up the house in an instant. At 10:15 cats and foxes came to the door of the house, and the house said, “Who goes there? What's the password?”. At 12:00 noon, the dog which the owners had comes home and dies. Then the cleaning mice get rid of the body. At 2:35, bridge tables and martinis appear, ready for playing. They eventually are taken back when the house realizes that no one wants to play. At 4:30 some kind of virtual safari starts, with different colored animals. At 5:00, a bath is filled with hot water. At 9:05, a voice asks what poem Mrs McClellan wants to hear. She is of course dead, so it picks There will come Soft Rains by Sara Teasdale. At 10:00 a Tree branch smashed through the kitchen window, knocking cleaning solvent onto the stove. The house caught on fire. The house immediately detected this and started to put it out with water. Eventually the water ran out and it used some kind of green liquid but eventually the fire gets to the roof of the house and makes it malfunction.

    It is told by some narrator who is not in the story. He doesn't tell you that the people are actually dead until it comes to the part where it shows the marks of them on the out side of the house. He personifies many things, especially the house. He also writes about a very sensitive topic at the time, this was written at the beginning of the Cold War.

    I think he is trying to emphasize, like in the poem, how the earth will just go on without us if we simply disappear. He's obviously trying to show how badly the cold war could have ended.

    I think that this story was a very well written story and it goes into lots of detail for the time. He represents what would happen if a nuclear bomb was dropped on the USA. I enjoyed reading this story,
    I liked how it was written very much.

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  14. Scasi- There will come soft rains
    The story ‘There will come soft rains’ is a short story written in 1950 by the author Ray Bradbury.
    This story is set in a house in Allendale, California on the 4th of August 2026. The author is writing this story in the future, using his imagination to set it. There are no real characters in the story, everyone is dead but the closest thing to a main character would be the house, which speaks and moves.
    There is a lot of action in this story, it all starts when a tree collapses and smashes a window, which from there starts a massive fire. The fire spreads throughout the house getting larger and larger. The mechanical creatures that live in the house try to put it out, but they are unsuccessful and the house ends up burning up and blows up.
    The style of the story uses lots of personifications which gives the house character. It is told by a narrator and also in present tense which makes us feel part of it. The author uses personifications such as ‘now the fire lay in bed’ which we can tell, is not real because the fire cannot lie in bed but it gives us the image of the fire and also creates a character for it.
    The ideas of the story are basically, that a nuclear explosion happened, which cleared away a lot of houses and wiped out a lot of humans around that area. The only thing that survived was this house and even without the family living in it, the house still continues its daily routines with breakfast, dinner and so on... Also another idea that does not come out of the story straight away is that the author is showing us that even if all the humans were wiped out, nature would keep going on and would not be affected.
    Overall I liked this story because it is set in the future from the authors point of view, but to us this could already be possible and we are still in 2009. Also the way the story has no characters and only this strange and mysterious house. I really liked it :D.
    Rosie.

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  15. There Will Come Soft Rains

    The short story “There Will Come Soft Rains” is written by Ray Bradbury in 1950. It is a science fiction, but you could also call it some kind of ghost.

    The setting of this story is a house in the future, in the year 2026. It is set in Allendale, California, and it August 4th at the beginning, and then August 5th. The house is very modern and stands alone in a city of rubble and ashes.
    In the story, it is difficult to tell who the main characters are, because there are no living humans. There is the house which day by day stands alone in the city and tries to care for its nonexistent inhabitants. The humans that used to live there are already dead. You could say that this story’s main character is the house, because this story is also written as if you were the house. There isn’t mentioned a lot about humans, it’s mostly about what the house does. There are also the little robots which are part of the house’s technology, and then, there is the dog, but it dies.

    The story starts in the morning. A technical voice says the time when there is something important to do for example waking up, breakfast or going to school. But there is nobody to do so because the house is empty. The people that lived there died because of an atomic explosion. We get to know that because the author writes ‘at night the ruined city gave off a radioactive glow which could be seen for miles.’ The author writes step by step what happens at what exact time in the house. The house prepares breakfast, lunch, dinner, but nobody eats it and so the house cleans it up again. The house has also many robots in it, like the little mice that come out to clean. We get to know what happens to the humans when the author comes to describe the house wall: ‘The entire west face of the house was black, save for five places… the five spots of paint – the man, the woman, the children, the ball, - remained.’ This means that in the house once lived four people but they died suddenly because of an atomic explosion. At noon, a dog came into the house. The dog was only let in because it once belonged to the family and the house recognized its barks. But the dog was already very weak and died soon after. Electronic mice cleaned up and took away the dead body of the dog. The house prepared other different things like ‘children’s hour’ or ‘bath time’ but cleaned up everything after nobody came. In the evening, the house prepared a poem and played it. The poem was called ‘There Will Come Soft Rains’ by Sara Tesdale. IN the poem, there was written similar actions which also happened to the house. The poem talked about fire, and soon after, the house caught fire because of a cigar. Then the windows were destroyed by a tree that fell down and because of the wind, the whole house burned down though all robots and the house itself tried to keep the house ‘alive’. In the end, the next day, the house ‘died’.

    1. Part

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  17. The author writes this story with a lot of data. The story always tells us what time it is and where, what happens. There aren’t any thoughts or own opinions in this story. Feelings are only mentioned a few times like ‘behind it whirred the angry mice…’ and ‘ten billion angry sparks…’. In both examples, the feelings are negative and in both, the feelings don’t describe humans, but nonliving things. There are other examples that show that the author describes objects with adjectives/ verbs that are used with humans: ‘But the fire was clever…’ or ‘the house began to die..’. The nonliving things in this story seem to be alive, or seem to have a brain. The house with its technology for example talks all the time, asks questions or informs, so it makes us think it was alive. There are used many, many adjectives and also many comparisons for example: ‘… hysterically yelping to each door’, ‘the region of mice hummed out as soft as the blown gray leaves in an electrical wind.’

    I think that the story some how wants to tell us that the technology can also be very dangerous. Though it made the daily routines of the people very comfortable, it also killed them. Maybe the author wants to warn us not to exaggerate it with the technology. This story has also some kind of similarity with a ghost story because the people are dead and this house is all alone in that ruined city. It’s like a haunted place where there still are these paints of the dead family is on the wall. And these white places on the black wall are really reminding someone of ghosts.

    I really liked this story a lot. It was interesting from the beginning till the end and you always knew exactly what happened in the house. It wasn’t written in a too complicated way and I was really shocked when the dog suddenly dies. I like the way the author wrote as if the fire and the house were alive. But I would like to know more about what happened to the family.

    2. Part
    By Caroline :)

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  18. There Will Come Soft Rains
    The story ‘There Will Come Soft Rains’ was written by Ray Bradbury in 1950 and is a story about a robotic house that survived a nuclear explosion, and how it goes about daily life with nobody there.

    The house is situated in Allendale California on August 5th 2026. The story gives the impression that had there not been a nuclear explosion, the setting would have been somewhat idyllic. However, in the story the area surrounding the house is barren and irradiated. The house had a garden in front, which was the final ‘resting’ place for its owners as this is where they were when the explosion happened.

    There are no human characters at all in this story; in fact there are very few living things in the story, one of which is a diseased dog that ends up dying inside the house. However there are other characters that appear in the story, for example parts of the house’s robotic features are little metallic mice that clean up the house. However the main character is the house itself, there are computers in the attic that drives the whole house and makes the voice in the walls speak. It is this voice that is the only actual speech throughout the story.

    The story starts off with the voice in the walls trying to wake up its occupants (who, unbeknownst to the computer, are no longer alive) with rhyming phrases. From here the house starts to make breakfast, which is then scrapped into the garbage disposal. After this the perspective moves outside of the house at which point you find out that the occupants are actually dead and there was a nuclear explosion because the surrounding ruins gave off a radioactive glow. Despite this, the house continues on with its daily chores, and is still undisturbed when a diseased dog (the one that the house’s occupants owned before their death) runs into the house and dies. The house then tries to ask the female occupant what poem she would like to hear, obviously as she is not there, the house picks one at random. The poem is called ‘There Will Come Soft Rains’ by Sara Teasdale and it talks about how nature would continue on without humans. This is quite ironic considering that is exactly what is happening in the story. Then the story starts to reach its climax when a broken tree limb falls onto a house starting a chemical fire which, despite the house’s best efforts, leads to the destruction of the entire house. Except for one wall that is left standing repeating ‘Today is August 5th 2026’ as if it were a mantra.

    The story is written in a 1950’s prediction of the future style, with everything fully automated and the idyllic American dream life present. However, it also has the twist of nuclear Armageddon as fears started to mount in the 50’s about nuclear weapons. The style of the story pertains very much to the era in which it was written.

    ‘There Will Come Soft Rains’ poses some very realistic questions, at least at the time, about humanity itself and how a) we are so adept at destroying one another and b) how we may be necessary to nature in many ways, but nature does not depend on us. Nuclear war is also a topic that is very present in both this story and the time it was written. It also show that 59 years ago, the vision of automated robots that carry out tasks was something 76 years ahead of their time, it does look a lot nearer nowadays.

    I Enjoyed the story a lot, the thought of the idyllic life ruined by the people themselves intrigues me, as well as frightens me. I would have liked to know more about the what happened, perhaps a newspaper lying about or something similar. But overall I thought the story was very well written and I liked it!

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  20. The short story is called ‘there will come soft rains’ and was written by Ray Bradbury in 1950. The story is set in 202. Ray Bradbury is still alive.

    The setting of the story was in a house with a garden with nothing else surrounding due to a nuclear bomb, the house was like an alive robot. Its in August, 2026.

    There are no human characters in this story. The main character of this story is a robot that is doing all the house chores and controls the house. The robot gives the old family everything from food to house work. Then there are the robot mice that help around the house, these clean and tidy the house.

    The plot is about a house, with lots of robots there to assisting the people living in the house with food, house cleaning and other things needed. In the end of the story there is a fire that destructs the house and the robots and that is how the short story ended.

    The writer tells the story as if he was telling a story about the future and what it was going to be like. He always describes the story well and when you read it you could see it as a lovely place even though the surroundings where all blown away.

    The short story is about the future and there are robots doing the house work instead of the normal human way. The story is very well written with a lot of imagination of how robots could control a house, and maybe the world.

    I found this short story very interesting, and it was a very easy and nice story to read. I liked the way the writer was describing the things in the house. The way he wrote it was easy to read.

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  21. There Will Come Soft Rains

    This story is set in Allendale, California in 2026. There is a house which is very futuristic. However, as the story was written in the 1950s, it only shows the perspective of what someone then thought a house in the distant future would look like. The house seems to look very pleasant with how it is described.

    We realise that the residents of the house are dead as there was no reply after the robot was asking them. We believe that they died from a nuclear bomb as it says the house stood alone in a city ofrubble and ashes. This was the one house left standing. This was a clear indication of what people thought would happen to America in 1950 when the cold war just started. The only live character is a Dog which is attacked by the robot.

    The story starts with the automated house waking the ‘family’ up and making breakfast. When no-one eats the breakfast, it is disposed of. At 9 o clock, the robot mice started to clean the house. Shortly afterwards, a dog enters the home. After the robot asks for the password with the incorrect reply from the dog, the robot begins to try and kill the dog. After this, tables came up from the patio; the house prepared the tables so that the parents could play bridge with the cards laid out and martinis ready. This was an image of the American dream as people wanted life to be as easy as possible. After ‘children’ went to bed the jukebox machine asked the ‘mother’ for her preference for what poem she’d like to be read to her. Once the cigars were put out and everything quietened down, suddenly fire broke out. This is the end of the house’s life and the end of the tale.

    I believe that the style of the future house and the robot played a key part in giving the tale the sci-fi atmosphere. This story is similar to 1984 by George Orwell in the sense that it was a perspective of what someone after the Second World War thought about what would happen in the future. The story also is heavily based on the dream American life having everything made easy so that everyone is very happy.

    The story clearly has a Sci-fi theme as it is based on the future. There is also a nuclear war theme because of the town being destroyed from a nuclear bomb falling on the USA. The idea of robots control is shown here which is linked to the Sci-fi theme. In a way, some parts of the story’s futuristic items are beginning to crop-up in today’s world. An example would be voice-activated stereos and radios which are found on some cars.

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  22. There will Come Soft Rains
    There will come soft rains was written by Ray Radbury in 1950, and is based on the poem ‘there will come soft rains’. The story is set in the USA, and is set in 2026, depicting the ‘house of the future’. The story is set after a nuclear attack (supposed), and was written at the start of the Cold war, and end of world war 2.
    The story is set in Allendale, California, in 2026(August the 4th-5th). The writer is trying to send the message across that there has been a nuclear attack, by surprise (also, the fact that it was written in the Cold war, where nuclear weapons were manufactured). The landscape is bare, and barren, with no human beings remaining, and only a few animals, and plantation.
    The main character in this story is the highly technical house, as there are no humans remaining, although some life remains. A dog, maybe belonging to the previous owners appears, and goes ‘mad’ as a cause of illness, and dies. A few animals are mentioned, and a tree crashes into to house (not really a character). However, the house has many robots inside, that have particular jobs that they perform precisely, which can be referred to as characters. At first, the story appears to have humans in it, but it seems a little fishy, so when the sillouettes are revealed, it all makes sense.
    The story is basically a ‘normal’ day in the life of the future, except for the fact that there are no people living anymore. So the house starts off with a wake-up call, followed by making the breakfast, efficiently, and places the food on the table. Nobody comes for it obviously, so it gets chucked down the waste disposal. After this, description is used to ‘paint a picture’ about the house, and it takes the reader outside, where the silhouettes are visible, the reader getting the whole picture by this point. The city is also giving off a radioactive ‘glow’ also adding to the effect of nuclear attack. Tables for card playing, with martinis on them pop out, but are obviously not used, so pop back in. A dog, recognize by the house enters (probably because it belonged to the owners)and goes to the kitchen, and eventually dies from illness. Cleaner mice clean this off, and burn the dog in the incinerator. The playroom lights up with animal animations, and the room for the woman of the house asks for a poem to be selected, but the house has to choose at random, picking ‘There will Come Soft Rains’, which explains the story more, and is rather ironic at this point. A tree crashes into the kitchen, splashing chemicals into the cooker, lighting up the house. The house responds immediately, but fails in its futile efforts, and the house burns down. The ‘house’ is then shown in the morning, still repeating the date over and over again.
    The story has a ‘retro’ feel, being set in 2026, but feeling like it was written back in the 50’s, when they had the ideas of the future. The story is also showing the typical American lifestyle, but woven in with the ideas of the Cold war. It feels like an old story, even though it is in the future.
    The story revolves around the themes of the future, nuclear war, and even a little sci-fi in the technology. Robots are used heavily, also showing that we, as beings, are getting lazier and lazier, and doing less exercise, and getting less and less self-dependable. The story is set in the near future for us, but the writer included devices that didn’t exist now, but do now, like voice-activation on many house hold items, and robots.
    I enjoyed reading this story, and i like these kind of stories, futuristic, and sci-fi. The story is written in a great way, revealing the information, but at important parts of the story, and in good timing. I liked the setting, and the way that the showing of no humans was given in silhouettes. I want to know what happened previously, and about the ‘war’. A good story, that was a pleasure to read.

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  23. There Will Come Soft Rains

    ‘There Will Come Soft Rains’ is written by Ray Bradbury in the 1950’s, the whole story is about a lone house that survived a nuclear explosion, and the house is living; it is run by robots yet there are no living people.

    The story is set in Allendale, California after a nuclear explosion, and the date is the 5th of August, 2026. There is a lone house that has retained its shape and it is electronically operated from inside as it is controlled by robots, there is nothing around the house apart from barren wastelands and a few trees. In the beginning of the story we get an idea of what the landscape is.

    There are no characters in this story, but since the house talks, and the mechanical cleanup mice and the injured dog move, there seem to be three characters in the story. The house is in charge of everything that happens in the house, and when it talks in rhymes with every sentence, the mechanical mice are mouse-like robots that clean up around the house, they are fast and efficient. The last character is the injured dog that walks up to the door and then gains access to the house, sadly it dies after a while in the house and the mice quickly clean it up after it starts to decay.

    The story starts off by the house doing a wakeup call, saying ‘Tick-tock, seven o'clock, time to get up, time to get up, seven o'clock!’ the house does this twice to make sure everyone is up, then it prepares the breakfast; Toast, Eggs, Bacon, Coffee and Milk, the it proceeds to say the days date ‘August 4th, 2026’ as well as where the house is located ‘in the city of Allendale, California.’ After breakfast the House got everyone ready for Work or school, it had the garage door open and everything, but there was no movement. It shut the garage door and cleaned up the mess, then at Nine-fifteen little mice whirred into action as they cleaned up all the dirt, dust and anything hidden, they then proceeded back into their burrows. At around ten-fifteen the garden sprinklers started up, and at that point the story goes on about how there are no people left. Later an injured dog found its way to the house and stood at the door, the house asked for a password, and upon that the dog whimpered and the house recognized the dog and let it in. After awhile the dog dies, and the mechanical mice get to work and get rid of the dog. At two thirty-five tables come out from the walls and Martinis and cards are placed on the table along with Egg-salad Sandwiches. Four o’clock and the children’s room comes to life, coloured animals fill the walls, and the floor becomes a meadow, the next few hours were getting everyone ready for bed and then at Nine-five the poem ‘There Will Come Soft Rain’ by Sara Teasdale played all around the house. Then at ten o’clock a tree crashed into the house and a fire started, eating away at the house until there was nothing left, then after all is over, the house talks one more time saying ‘Today is August 5th,…’

    Part 1

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  24. The story is written in what people of the 1950’s believed was the ‘Future’ and Ray Bradbury also wrote about a Nuclear Explosion, seeing as there was a nuclear explosion not too long ago, he wanted to capture what it would be like if no human ‘existed’ and as the story goes on, it seems like the world goes on as normal if there were no humans. Ray Bradbury also uses a lot of personification as he gives life to the sink, ‘Where hot water whirled them down a metal throat which digested and flushed them away’ and he gives life to the fire, ‘Now the fire lay in beds, stood in windows,’ but there are many more examples of his use of personification.


    I think Ray Bradbury wanted to show us in his story how life would have continued if we were simply ‘not there’, he also might have wanted to show us what can happen if more nuclear explosions happened. In the story there also seems to be a Loneliness theme as everything seems to be dying and there is only the one house standing in a barren wasteland.



    I liked this story, as it gave a new way to look at the future, and I also liked the fact that it was a sci-fi type story. I liked how it portrayed the house as a ‘living’ being and that it told us about the silhouettes and what pictures they made on the wall. Overall it was an enjoyable short story.

    Part 2.

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  25. There Will Come Soft Rains Essay:

    The title of this story is There Will Come Soft Rains The author of this story is Ray Bradbury and he wrote this story in the year 1950. He is best known for his popular novel, Fahrenheit 451. He is also known for many other famous novels, and he was considered one of the greatest and most popular American writers of speculative fiction in the 20th century.

    The story is set in a house that has been standing for a while after what seems to be nuclear warfare of some sort. The house seems to be the only one standing in the rubble surrounding it, and the robots inside it are still working, until the end. The story is set in the year 2026, which was many years away from when it was written, but now only 17 years later. The story is set over a period of one day, from August 4th to August 5th.

    There are no characters that are human in this story, since they have all been killed, but there are characters that are robots, and the house itself, since it is personified many of the times it is described. There is a different robot for every job, such as a cooking robot, and little mice that run around cleaning all signs of dirt. The house itself senses everything and is programmed according to the time of day.

    Throughout the story, it is explained how the house is working and the story describes all the robots individually and puts in quite a lot of personification for the house. There are the cooking robots, the robot that talks from the walls of the house, the little robot mice that clean up any mess found in the house immediately, and probably many more. The house does not let anything unfamiliar even touch it; It will not even let a bird sit on it. Later on in the story, a dog whines at the door and is let in, and it is said that it was once big and healthy, but now skinny and covered in wounds. It walked around the house leaving mud behind it, which forced little mice to clean it up, and it went to the kitchen door. It could smell food being cooked and it went crazy and eventually died. After about an hour the little robot mice could sense decay and they immediately cleaned up the entire dog. As it comes to night time, on of the voices asks what poem to read, and since there is no answer it decides to read what it recalls as the house owner’s favorite poem. It is called There Will Come Soft Rains. At the end of the story the house is ‘dying’ because of a fire started by a tree crashing into the house. The water runs out, so the robots gush out a green chemical, but the fire goes to the back of the house, and destroys everything. In the rubble of the destroyed house, a voice is continually repeating ‘Today is August 5, 2026, today is August 5, 2026, today is…”

    The writer tells this story in a very descriptive way, describing every little detail very clearly. The author did not use foreshadowing, so the story goes on smoothly with events happening all of a sudden, rather than giving an idea of what might happen next, although the author gives ideas on the setting and what has happened to the house bit by bit throughout the story.

    In this story the author used the idea of robots and technology, and he stereotyped the future, for example because of the artificial intelligence of the house etc.

    This story was very good, and I liked it because I like the author’s style of writing, how he describes everything, and the story does not get boring even though there is no foreshadowing. I like how he uses personification for inanimate objects. I enjoyed reading the story, and I never wanted to put the book down because the story created a suspense that made me want to keep reading.

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  26. S.C.A.S.I – ‘There Will Come Soft Rains”’ By Ray Bradbury
    Siri Arends

    ‘There Will Come Soft Rains’ is a story written by Ray Bradbury in 1950. It tells the thoughts of the author, Ray tells us what he thinks life will be like in 2026. The writer wrote this during the Cold War, so he figured the war would last much longer then it did.
    The story is set in the United States. It is set in the state of California in the city of Allendale. The house is the last one standing in a mass of rubble. The rest of the area has been destroyed because of the nucleur bombs.
    There are no living characters in the story except for the dog ,who is not a major character. The main character in the story would be the actual house. The house is very personified in the story; “whirled them down a metal throat which digested and flushed them away to the distant sea. “. Ray Bradbury gives the house its own character. The only other ones mentioned would be the robots with in the house such as the cleaning mice.
    The story tells the story of this empty house. It is empty because the people were killed in a nuclear explosion, “the silhouette in
    paint of a man mowing a lawn. Here, as in a photograph, a woman bent to pick 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 a ball which never came down “. The house says its seven, and tells us the date ‘August 4l, 2026’ and the place, “ Allendale, California'. The house makes breakfast, but no one eats it. It opens the garage, where a car is waiting, but no one is there to drive it. The house goes about doing, I think, a set schedule. Cleaning, Bridge and Cocktails at three. At noon, a dog arrives, the house recognizes the dog and lets it in. The dog searches through the house for the humans. The dog is in bad conditions. Then the dog smells food being made, and goes mental trying to get into the kitchen. He then dies. That night a branch smashes through a window and starts a fire. The house starts screaming and recruits move in to try to extinguish the fire. The house burns to the ground. At the end of the story, it tells the how from the rubble, a voice announces; ‘Today is August 5th 2026”.
    The story is written in a futuristic style. It is also written in a very personified way, at the end when the house is burning it tells us about the wires and cords that are referred to as capillaries and veins.
    The author has a kind of crystal ball idea; he’s giving his thought on what the future will be like. In the story it sort of says, that human have become so lazy that they have robotic houses that do everything for them, cooking, cleaning etc. I think the story has a sort of ghostly theme, because this house continues to function despite the fact that these people have disintegrated into nothing. It is serving up life to nothing. And it sort of has the idea of life after death and I think reference to the silhouettes that are imprinted on the wall kind of adds to the ghostly effect.

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  27. sorry for the late post. For some reason, it decided not to let me on to blogspot.com at all >.>
    --- Tatiana T. 9A

    There Will Come Soft Rains Essay

    “There Will Come Soft Rains” was published in 1950 by Ray Bradbury. It’s based in the future, and is supposed to be after the atom bomb on Hiroshima, and all the damage caused by it. The story was included in a collection called “The Martian Chronicles.” It has a post-apocalyptic kind of atmosphere. The title is meant to go with the poem by Sara Teasdale called “There Will Come Soft Rains.”

    The story is set in the city of Allendale, California, on August 4, 2026, in an ‘alive-house’. It is also raining during the story. The story goes through different times during the day, but starts out at 7 am and ends on the next day, on August 5, 2026. The city that they are in gives off a ‘radioactive glow’ which shows that something radioactive had happened there, like an atomic bomb.

    There aren’t really any ALIVE main characters. But, in a way, you could include the dog and the bird as minor characters. The house is the main character, really, because it is the house that is controlling everything that happens inside it. The house is personified many times throughout the story, giving you the feeling that it is alive, and has many chores to do throughout the house. There are also the little mice, and other robots, that come and clean when necessary.

    At the beginning of the story, there is the house/robot trying to wake up the owners/living inhabitants of the house, only to find no answer. It says, “Tick Tock. Seven o’clock. Time to get up.” The house is personified a lot throughout the entire story, and it does most of the work and sets up things even though there is no one actually living in the house. There are little mice that pick up/clean up any dirt or mess almost immediately after they sense it. The house is rather ‘paranoid’. When just a mere bird had touched the roof, or sat on the roof, it started asking for the ‘password’ and locked itself up as soon as it heard no response. The house automatically sets up a bridge table, makes breakfast every morning, and recites poems everyday because that was how it was when the owners were living in the house. In the story, later on, a dog appears at the door and whines. The house recognizes the dog from its whine, and lets it in. Since the dog had come from outside, looking unhealthy and too skinny, it treads in some dirt. The little robotic mice are forced to clean up after him quickly as they sense it. The dog made its way to the kitchen, where the smell of food was coming from, and then spun around in circles, barking, until it finally died. It took a few seconds for the robotic mice to sense the decay and finally make their way to clean it up. Afterwards, it was as if the dog wasn’t there. Eventually, a tree crashes on the house, causing a fire to start up. The house tries to put out the fire, but uses up all its backup water and has none left to save itself. The fire spreads and is soon consuming the entire house, and all the house is able to do is sit there and let itself burn. As the house burns, the circuits get fried, and the house continuously says, “Today is August 5, 2026..’ over and over again, until, finally, it dies.


    PART 1

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  28. The author’s style is very descriptive, and he uses personification a lot while referring to the house. He gives little side details that might help you understand what had happened to the house and people that used to live in it. I think the purpose of writing the story was to show how it would be like if some… disaster, of some sort, had happened and how it would affect the people it had happened to. For example, atomic/nuclear bombs that are used to fight in wars. Most of the time, the consequences of what might happen aren’t taken into consideration, and this story shows the result.

    I liked this story a lot. It really showed what could happen when a nuclear bomb, or something that causes equal damage, could happen. It has a different take on the future, is well written, and the personification used really pulled me in. I also liked how the author made you feel as if you were inside the house, witnessing everything that was happening. The way it was written made the story more enjoyable, really.

    Part 2

    ---Tatiana T. 9A

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  29. ‘There will come soft rains’ and was written by Ray Bradbury in 1950. The short story is set in the ci-fi genre and the story takes place in the future in California on 4th august 2026 The setting of the story is set in a house of the future the house is robotic/mechanical with an artificial intelligence brain that controls the house. The house is alone with all the neighboring houses destroyed form the blast of a nuclear bomb so the house stands alone.

    There are no human characters in this story. The main character of this story is the robotic brain that controls the house and caters for the people that had lived in the house the robot prepares food cleans and pritty much does every thing that needs to be done in the house. The only living thing in the hole story is the family pet a dog that returns home dying of starvation and dyes in a fit of hunger and is cleaned away by the house.

    The action of the story is minimal with little happening but the house catering for the every need of the humans that once lived in the house. The house continues absentmindedly and does not even notice that the humans are not there. In the end there is a fire that destroys the house and the robots and on that the story ends.

    Ray Bradbury wrote the story on the basis of the common fears of the time nuclear warfare and mass death of large areas as the story is wrote after the bombing of Hiroshima. The family life before the bomb is an idealistic example of the future and is almost perfect except that the inhabitance are no more because of the bomb that had killed the family and left the house as a shell of what the people lives were like.

    The style used is a ci-fi that allows the reader to see the realization of nuclear warfare in a convincing way that feels almost in the mood of a pleasant horror story

    I found this short story very interesting, and enjoyable to read.I enjoyed the way Bradbury describes the house and the way it operates.

    Nathan Back

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