Bradbury's Implication of the Human Race

Bradbury's Implication of the Human Race Throughout The Martian Chronicles, Bradbury strategically tells a fascinating story of two thriving societies on both Earth and Mars. The people of Earth colonize Mars in fear of nuclear war or simply to get away from Earth and start a new life. As the book progresses, though, life on Earth or Mars grows unpleasant for humans. Eventually, there are few humans that are left on either planet. By writing these stories in such a manner, Bradbury implies that the human race will dwindle to almost nothing, and technology will have a significant role in society. In “The Off Season,” Sam Parkhill is granted half of Mars by the last Martians that exist. He is ecstatic; Parkhill claims the he would have plenty of business with his hotdog stand and other business he plans to open in the near future. As soon as he accepts the deed to Mars, humans start loading onto spaceships and traveling back to Earth. Sam quickly realizes that the change of events that have just taken place do not foreshadow a booming business. The catastrophe that everyone had dreaded had occurred: nuclear war. To the people on Mars, the earth “seemed to come apart in a million pieces, as if a gigantic jigsaw had exploded” (216). This is relevant because even today nuclear war is a possible threat, and it could lead to the downfall of humanity. After the war, life is altered. The use of complex technology for personal purposes becomes more prevalent. In “The Long Years,” Mr. Hathaway constructs his own family; they are essentially robots, yet they have emotions. Hathaway is visited by his old crew members, and he passes away during the visit due to old age. One of the men, Mr. Williamson, asks, “’Are you going to turn them off?’” (246) This example is implying that technology will have such a meaning to the human race that it could be family. One chapter in the book is solely about a house that carries out daily functions, as if someone lives in it: “five o’clock, the bath filled with clear hot water” (252). The house even talks. It is so advanced that it houses and nurtures a dog. The house burns itself down, and even after the fire and almost everything is gone, the house still speaks. It still carries out its functions, somehow. This is a decent example of Bradbury trying to conclude that technology will be the “people” of this time period. It is also saying that having technology as such an important role in our lives will never be worth what we could do for ourselves. This idea is also frightening in the sense that someone could suggest that a house, something we see as an inanimate object, could personify itself to the point of carrying out human activities. This is still a foreign concept to our society today. We are not that familiar with that type of technology. The house is emphasizing the leading job technology would bring to us. By this point in Bradbury’s ideal 21st century book, humans are scarce on Mars. The book only mentions two people on Mars. Walter Gripp is one of them. He cannot find anyone to talk to for hundreds of miles. He dials every number in the phonebook; he is desperate for socialization. One number he stumbles across actually has a human being waiting at the other end. The two meet up, and she turns out to be completely insane. He then carries on avoiding the girl at all costs, and he lives his life in isolation. This represents Bradbury’s concept of an apocalyptic event wiping out nearly every living being.
The book finally spirals down to the only people living on both planets combined are a few families. There is only one family left on Mars, and they are human. There are also only a few known families left on Earth as well. The families on Earth have no choice but to travel to Mars with the intentions of leaving Earth behind, and their desertion may be forever. They want to start over and leave the past in the where it belongs. According to Bradbury’s implication, this is due to the human race becoming too intelligent for its own benefit, and it eventually demolishing itself.
In conclusion, Bradbury subtlety predicts throughout the whole novel the fate of the human race. He thought that by the mid-21st century we would have had a tremendous downfall. He also alludes to the notion that technology would be a prominent factor in our lives.