There Will Come Soft Rains Analysis

The pursuit of knowledge has led to some of the greatest events in human history. The vaccine, the invention of electricity, and we can even mass produce gmos that may be the cure to world hunger. Though with this innovation comes terrible inventions such as mustard gas and the nuclear bomb. Both of these stories build on this idea of the growth of technology, and how it will affect our future. Ray Bradbury’s “There Will Come Soft Rains” perfectly illustrates the devastation that technology can cause. Stephen Vincent Benet’s “By the Waters of Babylon” takes place in a future post-apocalyptic Earth after a nuclear bomb has sent the human race back the the stone age. The main character John goes on a journey to the “Place of the Gods” which is forbidden. On this journey he find that the “Gods” were actually just men that destroyed themselves. Once John returns to his people, he and his father agree that they should reveal this slowly. On page 321 John’s father and John talk about his journey “I wished to tell all the people, but he showed me otherwise” his father goes on
In “There Will Come Soft Rains” A nuclear bomb has decimated a community except for one house. This house goes on with its daily tasks as if the people were still there. On page 330 the house begins to wind down for the night “The bed warmed their hidden circuits, nights were cool here...A voice spoke from the study ceiling: ‘Mrs. McClellan, which poem would you like this evening?’ The house was silent” the house then chooses a poem randomly due to her “silence”. This shows how after this devastating event, caused by futuristic technology, the technology still doesn’t even notice the people are gone. The house keeps doing its daily tasks, but when the dog comes in and dies the house just cleans it like another mess. This has a way of showing the divide between mechanical and organic, that caused this problem to begin