"There Will Come Soft Rains": A Sentence Analysis
"The dog, once huge and fleshy, but now gone to bone and covered with sores, moved in and through the house, tracking mud. Behind it whirred angry mice, angry at having to pick up mud, angry at inconvenience."
(Bradbury 324)
This sentence reveals the whole background and development of this short story. Something that was once healthy and living is reduced to a shriveled corpse, unfit for survival. It is a drastic change that faces the living. While, it does not directly describe the nuclear war that occurred before the story, it emphasizes the almost lifeless world by describing the only thing living in the story as a dog. (In this sense, dogs may be lower on the biological hierarchy of life compared to humans.) In addition, the fact that the dog tracks in mud into the house describes the relationship life has with new technology. Technological advancement can be correlated to the fall of quality of human life. (The technology utilized in creating the nuclear bomb ultimately destroyed human civilization as we know it).
The scene described is an analogy to the drastic changes of nature after nuclear fallout. Trees are shriveled up, what was once a family are now a group of black silhouettes on the house walls, and the dog is covered in sores and starving. As the sentence said the dog was once plump and fleshy, the family was most likely living "the american dream" based on the time period, and the landscape was originally rich with green. The dog is ultimately used as symbolism for the state of nature and human existence.
As I revealed before, the improvement of technology to a certain extent can be correlated to human and natural suffering. As the dog enters the house, the "cleaning mice" (controlled by the house) try to remove all traces of it starting from the mud it tracked in. It describes the mice (despite being inanimate objects) as angry and seeing this kind of behavior as bothersome. Bradbury tries to convey a main theme in the story through this sentence. While machines may be convenient to us, human behavior and traces conversely make us inconvenient to them. They were created to "fix" our problems. Bradbury later wraps this theme up with the house's disposal of the dog, showing how little life matters in the subject of machines.
This scene (much like anywhere else in the story) is narrated in a tone such that the house does not care or have human compassion. The above quote is an example of how little emotional interaction there is between the dog and the house. It merely does what it was originally instructed to do. Bradbury makes a statement that machines cannot replace nature due to its lack of emotional intellect.
Hello Eddy,
ReplyDeleteThis is some really good analysis. I particularly like your point about how machines may see humans as an "inconvenience"; the personification of technology is definitely very prevalent in "There Will Come Soft Rains". While reading the story, I also saw the dog as the symbol of the "American Dream" being lived by the family, so its graphic death speaks volumes about the message of the story. I wonder, though, if the stubborn mud that the dog tracks in might show how nature can retaliate to technology, much like the fire burns down the house.
I really like your idea about us being the "mistakes that machines fix." Like you mentioned, it seems like the mice want to erase all traces of human existence. I wonder the act of the mice cleaning up the dog's tracks symbolized the nuclear war that ended civilization. The same way the mice removed signs of life to clean the house, the war ended lives while maintaining the infrastructure (houses, machines).
ReplyDeleteThroughout my first read of the story, it never occurred to me that the dog might stand as a metaphor for humanity in the novel. I thought that was just a symbol of humanities last dying breath, bu I can see how it could represent the once powerful civilization fall into disgrace.
ReplyDeleteI also liked your take on the technological aspect in the story. You mention a lot about how little machines care for life, and how their only goal is to do what they were instructed to do due to their lack of emotional intellect. I am curious as to whether this lack of emotional intellect can prevent AI consciousness. Instead of making hugely complex learning machines, perhaps we can make a bunch of small machines that work together, to prevent coherent thought if we are scared of Terminator: The Real Life Version.
Throughout my first read of the story, it never occurred to me that the dog might stand as a metaphor for humanity in the novel. I thought that was just a symbol of humanities last dying breath, bu I can see how it could represent the once powerful civilization fall into disgrace.
ReplyDeleteI also liked your take on the technological aspect in the story. You mention a lot about how little machines care for life, and how their only goal is to do what they were instructed to do due to their lack of emotional intellect. I am curious as to whether this lack of emotional intellect can prevent AI consciousness. Instead of making hugely complex learning machines, perhaps we can make a bunch of small machines that work together, to prevent coherent thought if we are scared of Terminator: The Real Life Version.
This comparison is really fascinating. I think the fact that dogs are "man's best friend" really adds to the irony here. Although the dog outlasted its owners, it too is in a really sorry state and quickly dies. You could think of technology as humanity's new "best friend" even though compassion is the one thing it can't learn.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading this blog post. I thought that your points on how the machines have no emotional connection to the dog or any life made sense and showed what the author was conveying about technology and human life. Specifically, I thought the sentence you chose almost encompasses the whole story's vibe and was an excellent choice on your part.
ReplyDeleteI 100% agree with your analysis of the story.
ReplyDeleteI also interpreted Bradbury's use of the dying dog and mechanic mice as a symbol of the fall of humanity & technology outliving it. It's really interesting to see the connection you made with the dog being lower on the biological hierarchy of life in comparison to humans, and what that means in the context of the story. I hadn't thought of it like that before -- but it does make sense that the dog being the last living being in the story was an emphasis on the idea of destruction of human life as we know it, and the perils that come with the prevalence of technology. Great choice in the quote you picked!
I agree with your analysis. I also think that the final part: "angry at inconvenience", provides further justification. The machines view elements of nature as inefficient, needing to be removed. If the machines are that angry at a dying dog, that hostility might have eventually carried on to focus on humans.
ReplyDeleteFirst and foremost, I'd like to say that your post was extremely eye-opening and revealed a perspective that wasn't discussed in class. "There Will Come Soft Rains" puts such a definitive emphasis on the grotesque human silhouettes and humanity's untimely fall that I completely failed to recognize the dog as an important character. However, your analysis, and in particular your argument that the dog symbolizes the burden that living creatures pose to technology, completely changed my mind. In the end, I guess the fire completely engulfing the house is nature's retribution and a suggestion that technology's "lack of compassion" (as you put it), has its consequences.
ReplyDeleteThat's a really interesting sentence to analyze. You raise some good points, and I definitely see where you're coming from. To be honest, I didn't really think much of the dog; I just thought it was a way to demonstrate the house's autonomous qualities. I really liked your point about how machines are made to fix human mistakes. So while we see machines as convenient, they see us as inconvenient. This idea definitely suggests a dark, futuristic theme that we also see in "The Machine Stops."
ReplyDeleteThis is a very insightful blog post that really made me think a lot more about the dog scene than I originally did. You made some really great points about how the house doesn't care about anything, as it is autonomous, and doesn't have any empathy for the dog. Thanks.
ReplyDeletewow dude thanks!!!!!!!!!!! wholesome 100!
DeleteGreat work! I found your claim that nature inevitably wins over technology because of inferior emotional intellect interesting. I believe that the story stands to beckon that any attempt by man to construct structure that are immune to the will of nature is futile. This is because the power and predictability of nature is unmatched. The house was initially successful in combating the fire, however the fire then spreads to the ceiling where the control center for the fire suppression system is located, and effectively bypassing any chance the house had at resisting the fire and the greater will of nature. However, I am open to different ideas, and your point about technology lacking emotional intellect, and thus being unable to replace nature, can be attained from the passage you selected. Fine work!
ReplyDelete