"August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rain"
Ray Bradbury
"The house tried to save itself.
Doors sprang tightly shut, but the windows were broken by the heat and the wind
blew and sucked upon the fire."
I know a lot of people read this and want to talk about the technology behind the story. It is very cool to think about a house that can fully sustain a family. When I pictured the house I pictured the house form the kids show Rolie Polie Ollie. The house in this show was alive and helped the family a lot, not quite tot extent of the house in the story, but nonetheless the house was a caretaker.
Here is a picture of the family in front of their living house.
The technology in this story is certainly incredible, but I want to focus on the emotional aspect. I chose this quote because it honestly made me sad. The house was always there for the family, for whatever they needed. The house was there to help with every day tasks like wake up calls and bathing, and also for added things to just make the family happy, like a poetry reading. The house was always there, giving everything of itself, and the family was not there for the house the one time it needed someone to help it.
This aspect reminded me of The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. The tree gave all she could to the little boy (her shade, her apples, her leaves, her branches, her truck) until she was nothing but a stump all so that the little boy would be happy. When the tree was not happy, the boy was never there. He was off using all the tree had given him. The same thing happened to the house
Fascinating how the story uses personification to make you feel empathy for the house and its animated contents! Of course, the family isn't there because they've been blasted to ashes by a nuclear bomb... So there's more to be said about the good and bad power of technology in the story. But I like your sense that houses are caretakers.
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