There Will Come Soft Rains Summary

Ray Bradbury’s “There will come Soft Rains” tells the story of a house who begins to stir and wake but not a traditional sense. The house lacks of human voices. The house is automated who tells the inhabitants the time of the day and their upcoming activities. The house voice is clearly for someone, but no one is present to listen. The house is the only house standing in the surrounding area. Even though nobody appears to be living in the house, the house’s automated voice still continues to do its job. It was working fine until a dog entered the house because the house recognized its voice. The dog’s appearance indicates that something extreme has happened to the house’s former inhabitants, and he goes from door to door of the house looking for his family, but does not find anybody. He then starts panicking and begins to froth at the mouth, eventually he dies. Then the house’s cleaning mice sense it and go into the room and remove the dog. Despite this event, the house still continues as usual. As the house prepares itself for the night and sleeping, it asks Ms.McCleallan, “Which poem would you like this evening?”. And of course, no one responds. The computer chooses a random one. Soon after it finishes the poem, the house begins to die. A fire erupts and even though the house tries to contain the fire it takes over the house. The rubble still manages to speak “Today is August 5, 2026” as the house collapsed.
The house is located in Allendale, which was inhabited by a family, until a nuclear blast was wiped out of the human population.
Since the house is a machine it does not realize that nobody lives there so it continues to function as if the residents still lived there. It cooks, cleans and announces birthday and anniversaries reminders. When a fire breaks out, much of the house is destroyed. The house is a static character because although it went through physical damages it still had the same goals, to keep the residents
safe. Despite the fact that there is nobody is living inside the house; the house still continues doing its normal routines. This is an internal conflict because the house does not know that nobody lives there anymore but still keeps doing everything as if people lived there. An external conflict is as the house is burning it cannot decide if to let itself die or keep on trying to take down the flames. The setting of the story is August 4th through 5th of 2026 in the ruins of Allendale California. The story is inside the only remaining house after a nuclear incident had killed all the humans. The setting is specific and the house contributes to the central idea since it tries to stop the fire. It is also the main character after all there are no humans remaining in the house. The point of view in the story is third-person omniscient. This point of view is appropriate for this story because it allows us to see everything that is going on throughout the entire house during the story. It describes the actions of the house without emotions though it does adopt a sympathetic tone when describing the house’s ultimate destruction by fire. The theme of the story is that technology will always overpower technology because technology cannot be compared to what nature can do. Nature is more dominant than any other things living on earth. The central idea is that even when the house tries its hardest to stop the fire, the fire but it still ended up destroying the house.