Ray Bradbury

There are several similarities between the stories “There Will Come Soft Rains” and “The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury. First of all, both houses seem to have a creepy nursery that projects pictures and...

While there are several main themes portrayed in this sci-fi short story, perhaps the most central is the idea that humans can be so naive that we even fool ourselves, yet this isn’t always a bad...

The Emperor's garden of metal and jewels represents his kingdom in miniature as it is right now. It is a representation of beautiful stasis, of the Emperor's desire to control his kingdom so that...

In "The Flying Machine," published by Ray Bradbury in 1953, the literal danger the Emperor perceives in the creation of the flying machine is that this innovation will cause people to move away...

Each question must be listed separately. I can answer only one. Also, please note that this is my opinion, as your answer should be when you address it. With opinions, there are generally no wrong...

One might argue that local pride is the main motivation here. The two Chinese towns are fiercely proud of their respective identities and feel that they are under serious threat from the other....

In his novel Fahrenheit 451 and many of his short stories, Bradbury sees human over-reliance on technology as a potentially serious problem for society. In both Fahrenheit 451 and his short story...

If you reconsider the basic outlines of the plot, I think you will start to detect the theme of self-destructive obsession and fear of mortality that runs through Bradbury's story "The Skeleton."...

The quote "There are times...when one must lose a little beauty if one is to keep what little beauty one already has," from "The Flying Machine," by Ray Bradbury, is a paradoxical statement. The...

I think that it is clear that Ray Bradbury would not and did not advocate much of where the internet and social media leads people. He would support the idea that the over-reliance on such...

In The Utterly Perfect Murder, narrator Doug Spaulding decides to travel across America to murder his childhood friend, Ralph Underhill, who still lives in their hometown thirty-six years after...

"The Highway" comes from a collection called The Illustrated Man, in which the narrator sees another man's tattoos move and tell each of the stories. A theme which comes up in many of the stories...

Ray Bradbury was a writer who worked primarily within the genres of science fiction and fantasy. He was a master of the short story format. Indeed, it should also be noted that one of his most...

Ray Bradbury's "The Golden Kite, the Silver Wind" was published in 1953, during the Cold War, and is an allegorical story about the nuclear arms race between the United States of America and the...

Near the end of this story, the emperor executes the inventor of a beautiful flying machine rather than allowing this innovation to destabilize his country. Before that occurs, we have several...

Ray Bradbury employs the literary technique of situational irony in his sci-fi short story "A Little Journey." In the story, an eighty-five-year-old woman named Mrs. Amelia Bellowes reads an...

First, it is interesting to note that Ray Bradbury enjoyed an... ...incredibly prolific career that spans countless styles, formats, and genres... But what is most interesting with regard to this...

Both Bradbury short stories can find significant moments of comparison and some distinct points of divergence. What follows are some suggestions that can assist you with the formation of your...

Personally, as a symbol in the short story "The Utterly Perfect Murder," I like the train. To me, it is a symbol of Doug's journey into his past. This is actually supported by the text when...

The mood of a story is the feeling a reader gets as they read it. An author creates the mood of a story by including certain details, selecting words with powerful or interesting connotations, and...

Literary critic David Mogen identifies a trope of Ray Bradbury's work as "joyous absorption in the experience of living." Mogen and Gary K. Wolfe, another critic, observe that Bradbury's fiction...

This would be better suited to the question board, since you’re looking for a specific answer. However, they began the wall building "competition" because each felt the other’s wall was more...

While "The Veldt" is a critique on neglectful parenting, the reason for the neglect is caused by an unhealthy reliance on technology. The general theme of the danger of technology is illustrated in...

In both "There Will Come Soft Rains" and "The Veldt," families have built homes that are meant to cater to their every want and need, and neither home functions in the way that it was meant to do....

Bradbury's motivation to write was driven by his imagination. As a child, Bradbury was an avid reader, devouring works by Wolfe and Hemingway. This helped to drive his fascination towards the...

I am not sure I have a completely clear idea of what you mean by "crisis," but I'll see what I can do. There are two possible definitions for "crisis" that could apply to this story: an unstable...

The attempted eradication of the "other" is explored in two ways in Bradbury's The Visitor. First, people, all male, who have blood rust in the lungs, a communicable disease, are quarantined on...

Thematic connections are connections in meaning between the poem and the short story. What common message do both convey? This message is summed in the lines of the poem below: And not one will...

I think that part of Bradbury's genius is that he writes stories that might be set in a future or distant land, but the realities of bullying and intimidation are inescapable even in these...

While many of Bradbury's short stories discuss the negative consequences of technology upon American families, the three stories that you have read possess a different set of similarities. Below...

When Ray Bradbury died in 2012, President Barack Obama released a statement that praised Bradbury's contribution to society. Obama specifically mentions that Bradbury had a "gift for...

Ray Bradbury is an important author in science fiction. According to the eNotes site, he was one of the first authors to employ a cerebral, elevated writing style—rather than the more common...

1. "The Veldt" is dystopian in that the technology that is supposed to bring the Hadley family happiness only brings them misery and, for the parents, death. The world is different from our own in...

You have a great start to your research question! Let's try to hone this question a bit more and consider the things you want to research (and ultimately produce an answer for). Your listed...

In both these Bradbury stories, technology has run out of control so that humans are no longer running their own lives. The chief difference, however, is while in "There Will Come Soft Rains"...

Well, TVs are certainly growing larger. They're not wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling yet, but we're getting there. Of more concern and reflective of the novel is the fact that we are more and more...

Ray Bradbury is an ace at using descriptive settings to create suspense and to enhance action leading up to a crisis moment. In a way setting is often used as a symbol itself. Some good examples...

I can only answer one of the two questions presented, so I will address whether or not the quote provided is a theme of the story. Knowing Bradbury's work as I do, I cannot imagine that he would...

I must admit as to being unsure precisely what you are referring to in terms of the different plot diagrams that you mention. However, I wonder if the "chain" that you refer to could indicate a...

Totally true about the great, "There Will Come Soft Rains." Aren’t we getting closer and closer to the Ray Bradbury story, "The Veldt?" You know one with the parents, kids, nursery scenes, and etc?

There are many theories on time travel and if it is possible. The prevailing thought on the matter is that it is not possible to travel backward in time. We know through Einstein's special theory...

Going to the source might help here. When Ray Bradbury was asked in an interview as to his motivation in writing, he offered an insightful answer that can explain much: I had decided to be a...

Ray Bradbury chooses to write, mostly, in the science fiction genre. By doing this, he is able to make commentary about how scientific and technological advancements can or have affected the human...