There+Will+Come+Soft+Rains

__**Summary:**__ "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury, takes place in Allendale, California. The story starts on August 4th, 2026 in house up on a hill with the house reading the date out loud. The house continues by reading out the time through the morning. The house also does all the task you would assume a human would do. After reading a little of the story it's realized that the house is empty and it's doing all these task for an empty house. An explanation as to why the house is empty is not immediately given but it's described when the outlines of a family are described to be painted in the side of the house as they were incinerated by an explosion. The the house reads a poem by Sara Teasdale titled "There Will Come Soft Rains" and as the poem is read it sounds exactly like the situation the house is in with the world being destroyed by a war. Then the house catches fire after a tree branch breaks a window and spills cleaning solvent over the stove and a fire starts in the house. The house starts to go crazy trying to extinguish the fire but it can't because it runs out of water because the house has used all the water on normal task without people able to replenish it. After the fire is done only one wall is left standing and and it continues to read off the date and the story ends on August 5th, 2026. Some of the topics addressed in "There Will Come Soft Rains" include: Future, Science, Emptiness, Faithfulness, and Destruction. __** Evaluation: **__ "There Will Come Soft Rains" is a story completely based around Irony. The story is titled after the Sara Teasdale poem of the same name. When the house knows its time to read a poem and hears no response it chooses the homeowner Mrs. McClellan's favorite which is "There Will Come Soft Rains". As the poem is read allowed it lines up directly with the situation that is happening in the world of the story. The poem says that Animals will roam around in a world destroyed by war and in the story all different animals roam in the world that was destroyed by nuclear explosions. The poem talks about the cease of existence for mankind and there is no mention in the story of people surviving the explosions. This story also comes with a lot of historical context which makes it a lot more appealing to read. Ray Bradbury wrote this story with the original date of the story being April 28th, 1985, a time where the world was still recovering from WWII and right in the middle of the Cold War. Hundreds of thousands of people died as result of the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This story is what Bradbury thought was a possible outcome of this tension. Bradbury used the futuristic house as just a means of having a way to have the poem read in the story and get his real life fears carried out in the story. __** Citation: **__ // Bradbury ,//// Ray. “There Will Come Soft Rains”. Literature and the Writing Process, // Ed. Elizabeth McMahan, Susan X Day, Robert Funk, and Linda Coleman. 10th Edition. Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2014. 242-245. Print.
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__**[|Ray Bradbury]:**__ Internet Resource Ray Bradbury was born on August 22, 1920 and has had a writing career that has spanned more than 70 years. Throughout his long career Bradbury has had over 500 published works that include short stories, novels, plays, screenplays, TV scripts and verse. In 2000 Bradbury received the National Book award from the National Book Association. Ray has also been nominated for an Academy award and won an Emmy for his works. Sam Weller has also written a authorized biography about the life of Ray Bradbury. __**CRAAP:**__ This information was published in 2001 and covers anything you need to know about Ray Bradbury. The website is published by HarperCollins which is a very well known publisher which gives the website a lot of its credibility. This information is all there to inform people about Ray Bradbury and it does that very well because the whole websites focus is on him. __**Citation:**__ "About Ray Bradbury." //About Ray Bradbury //. HarperCollins Publishers, 1 Jan. 2001. Web. 1 Apr. 2015. .

In this essay by Pamela Steed Hill, she covers the the analysis of the poem that is embedded in Ray Bradbury's short story. Hill also compares some differences in theme between Teasdale's poem and Bradbury's story; "Teasdale's theme is actually more disturbing than Bradbury's because it demonstrates a wholesale disregard for mankind's coming and going. Man is not so evil that everything we have touched will die; instead, man is so evil that our self-destruction is not worthy of noticing" (Hill). Hill suggests that Bradbury actually wrote the lighter version based of the poem. Hill goes on in her essay to provide a counter argument she sees as something that can be argued and that is that her cynical view may not be so cynical after all. Life will continue after a massive war even if its not in the form of humans, animals and plants may survive after the demise of humans. __**Citation:**__ Hill, Pamela Steed. "Critical Essay on 'There Will Come Soft Rains'." //Poetry for Students //. Ed. Anne Marie Hacht. Vol. 14. Detroit: Gale, 2002. //Literature Resource Center //. Web. 1 Apr. 2015.
 * [|Critical Essay on "There Will Come Soft Rains"]** By Pamela Steed Hill: Database Resource