The Martian Chronicles Chapter Summary

The book The Martian Chronicles is a book based on the titles meaning. The title means a history of the colonization of Mars by Earth. The book tells a story of four expeditions made to by Earth people to Mars. The first three expeditions failed and all the people were killed. The last one was the most successful. Martians were still killed, mostly by chicken pox, but colonization began to take place. Some of the major characters are Ylla K, Yll K, and Nathaniel York. Ylla K is a Martian wife to Yll K, she often dreams of an earthman named Nathaniel York. Ylla wishes to meet Nathaniel, and Yll is very jealous of this. There are many different themes throughout the story; the main one is that of colonization. This story is told from third person point of view. Half of the story is told in limited omniscient. The other half is limited. In third person omniscient, the narrator is allowed to jump into anyone’s mind. And in this story that’s exactly what is done in most of the chapters. For example, "came because they were afraid or unafraid, because they were happy or unhappy, because they felt like Pilgrims or did not feel like Pilgrims" (2). The focus is on the group as a whole, not individuals.
The primary setting in The Martian Chronicles is Mars.
Mars in the story is different than the one we know. The story one is made of imagination, not facts. Bradbury’s Mars is one of hopes and dreams. Several of the stories also take place on Earth. Bradbury uses a poetic language when writing The Martian Chronicles. For instance, he describes the sand ships as "preening the sea bottoms" ("The Off Season," 111). Bradbury also knows how to write a sentence, particularly ones that use figurative language to help the reader see, smell, or
hear.
He felt something in the seat behind him, something as frail as your breath on a cold morning, something as blue as hickory-wood smoke at twilight, something like old white lace, something like a snowfall, something like the icy rime of winter on the brittle sedge. ("The Off Season," 81)
That's the description we get when a Martian is standing behind Sam Parkhill. Instead of simply saying "There's a Martian behind Sam, and it gives him a weird feeling," he gives us this list of comparisons that suggest a certain emotion. I do believe that throughout The Martian Chronicles, the style is consistent. Personally, I didn’t really like reading this book. I just couldn’t get into it at all. But, by reading this, I do think that everything went well together all in all. The plot, the setting, and the style worked good together in this book. I think that if Bradbury’s style of writing was different, I might have liked this book better and might have been able to get in to the book more than I did.