What are some examples of imagery in "There Will Come Soft Rains"?

Imagery is description that uses the five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. The imagery in Ray Bradbury's "There Will Come Short Rains" first reveals the pointlessness and poignance of a technology that keeps working once all the humans it serves have been destroyed. For example, there is pathos in the sound imagery of the house addressing nobody:

 The weather box on the front door sang quietly: "Rain, rain, go away; rubbers, raincoats for today…" 

Bradbury's poetic imagery personifies the house, making it seem like a human being. Here Bradbury uses sound imagery to personify the house's technology:

It quivered at each sound, the house did. If a sparrow brushed a window, the shade snapped up. The bird, startled, flew off! No, not even a bird must touch the house!

Below, Bradbury uses visual imagery to show a harsh and relentless technology trying to control nature:

For not a leaf fragment blew under the door but what the wall panels flipped open and the copper scrap rats flashed swiftly out. The offending dust, hair, or paper, seized in miniature steel jaws, was raced back to the burrows.

Ironically, technology, which is designed in this case to serve every need of the home's owners, is also what has destroyed the owners through a nuclear war. In the end, nature will win. Bradbury shows this in the following imagery of the house catching fire:

The wind blew. A failing tree bough crashed through the kitchen window. Cleaning solvent, bottled, shattered over the stove. The room was ablaze in an instant!

Bradbury continues to personify the house, and the following image, though primarily visual, also includes a sense of heat and motion:

The house shuddered, oak bone on bone, its bared skeleton cringing from the heat, its wire, its nerves revealed as if a surgeon had torn the skin off to let the red veins and capillaries quiver in the scalded air.

Imagery at the end shows the destruction of the house:

Smoke and silence. A great quantity of smoke.

What are some examples of imagery in "There Will Come Soft Rains"?

Imagery in "There Will Come Soft Rains" is often used to humanize the abandoned house. Though the humans who once lived there were killed in a nuclear explosion, the house continues to operate as though nothing has changed. The juxtaposition between the house's cheerful sense of normalcy with the eerie lack of people creates an uncanny tone.

One example of such imagery occurs when Bradbury reveals that the breakfast made for the family lays on the table uneaten:

At eighty-thirty the eggs were shrivelled and the toast was like stone. An aluminium wedge scraped them into the sink, where hot water whirled them down a metal throat which digested and flushed them away to the distant sea.

The food going bad subverts the earlier inviting imagery that was created when it was cooked. With no human beings around to consume the food, the house itself pushes the eggs and toast down a "metal throat." Even the heat of the water seems almost human since heat is often associated with emotion.

Heat reoccurs throughout the story, often in fire imagery. The fire in the hearth is emphasized when the house lights a cigar for the deceased father:

In the metal stand opposite the hearth where a fire now blazed up warmly, a cigar popped out, half an inch of soft gray ash on it, smoking, waiting.

Additionally, the circuits in the beds warm up once night falls. Evoking the explosion which killed the house's inhabitants as easily as it does cheerful domesticity, this imagery portends doom. However, once the dog dies, the fire imagery within the house becomes sinister:

The dog was gone.

In the cellar, the incinerator glowed suddenly and a whirl of sparks leaped up the chimney.

The imagery without context might seem inviting and cheerful, but knowing that the sparks are the result of the consumption of the dog's corpse makes it ironic.

The final destruction of the house by fire is also packed with similar imagery. The fire eats away at the "oily flesh" of the paintings on the walls, "tenderly crisping" the canvases as well. By using words that evoke eating and food, the fire becomes monstrous, creating an urgent and frightening atmosphere. Even the final collapse of the house is characterized through humanizing imagery:

The house shuddered, oak bone on bone, its bared skeleton cringing from the heat, its wire, its nerves revealed as if a surgeon had torn the skin off to let the red veins and capillaries quiver in the scalded air.

The structure and wiring within the house become its bones and nerve endings. Bradbury has so thoroughly made it seem like a character with goals and feelings that the description takes on a grotesque quality. Overall, the imagery in the story generates pathos and horror, blending the sights, smells, and feelings within an inviting futuristic home with dread, destruction, and decay.

What are examples of personification in "There Will Come Soft Rains," and their effects?

Bradbury makes frequent use of personification, attributing personal or human-like traits to a number of inanimate objects in the story.

In some cases, Bradbury describes inanimate objects as if they possess body parts, and he characterizes their physical actions and reactions in human terms. We can see this when the house is burning:

"The house shuddered, oak bone on bone, its bared skeleton cringing from the heat, its wire, its nerves revealed as if a surgeon had torn the skin off to let the red veins and capillaries quiver in the scalded air."

In other cases, Bradbury attributes mental and emotional states to objects, as in this description:

"…it had shut up its windows and drawn shades in an old-maidenly preoccupation with self-protection which bordered on a mechanical paranoia."

How does personification affect the story?

A good way to approach this question is to ask how different the story would feel if Bradbury had portrayed his inanimate objects without making any reference to human traits.

Clearly, personification invites us to feel a certain empathy for these objects. It's one reason why this story evokes an emotional response in the reader.

But these elements of personification do more than lend immediate emotional color to an action. Psychologists argue that when we attribute human characteristics to an object, we are encouraging the mind to tap into our broader understanding of how human beings think, feel, and behave.

If the house is merely an automated house, then its behavior is simply a series of mechanical operations, and the story is just a tale of a machine left running because nobody turned it off. But if we think of the house as a person, then it has a psychology, and its behavior can be perceived in many other ways  --  as confused, irrational, or uncomprehending in the wake of abandonment. It keeps making meals that nobody eats; it reads poems that nobody hears. What kinds of human situations does this evoke? How do the events of the story relate to things we have experienced or witnessed?

So Bradbury's use of personification doesn't just make us respond to the immediate meaning of his metaphors ("the fire was clever"). It also leads us to go beyond the words he uses, and associate his objects with a wider range of thoughts, motives, and feelings.

What are examples of personification in "There Will Come Soft Rains," and their effects?

Even though there are no living human characters in Ray Bradbury's 1950 story, he creates pathos through personifying certain elements of an automated house. In a post-apocalyptic California, the house continues to serve a family apparently killed by a nuclear blast. Some of the machines, like the clock and the weather box, are described as "singing," and the stove and incinerator sigh; it is poignant that no one is there to hear them.

When the family's dying dog tracks mud into the house, "behind it whirred angry mice, angry at having to pick up mud, angry at inconvenience." The house expresses human emotions as it is ultimately consumed by fire: "the voices wailed Fire, fire, run, run, like a tragic nursery rhyme, a dozen voices, high, low, like children." 

The destruction of the house echoes the destruction of humanity, with one last voice emerging from the rubble to witness "today is August 5, 2026," with no one left to hear. The effect that Bradbury creates is a cautionary tale about the risks of mankind's overreach in the new atomic age.

What are some examples of personification in "There Will Come Soft Rains"?

Personification is a form of figurative language in which an author attributes human qualities to something that is not human. There is a great deal of personification in Ray Bradbury's short story “There Will Come Soft Rains,” being that there are no humans left in the house. The narrator uses personification when describing all of the inanimate objects in the home as well as the natural forces that later destroy it.

For example, the narrator describes the machines in the house as if they have human abilities and emotions. The stove “gave a hissing sigh” as it made breakfast, and the incinerator also makes a sighing noise later on. The robot mice are also “angry” about the dying dog, and later the narrator describes some of them as brave as they dart out during the fire.

Similarly, the narrator also describes the fire that destroys the house as if it is alive:

The fire crackled up the stairs. It fed upon Picassos and Matisses in the upper halls, like delicacies, baking off the oily flesh, tenderly crisping the canvases into black shavings.

Now the fire lay in beds, stood in windows, changed the colors of drapes.

This passage is full of personification because the narrator attributes human qualities like eating and laying down to a fire, which is not human. Later the fire is said to be “clever,” as if its movements throughout the house are calculated and malicious.

By portraying all these nonhuman things as if they have human traits, Bradbury highlights the power of technology while also reminding the reader that nothing humans create is a match for nature’s power.

What are some examples of personification in "There Will Come Soft Rains"?

The house is the main character in Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains" because its human occupants and the rest of the humans in the area have been killed.

The house, a technological marvel that takes care of all of the family's needs, is designed to seem like a person. For example, it sings to the family as a human would: "Rain, rain, go away; umbrellas, raincoats for today."

However, the narrator of the story also personifies the house, for example, by writing:

Until this day, how well the house had kept its peace. ... it had shut up its windows and drawn shades in an old-maidenly preoccupation with self-protection which bordered on a mechanical paranoia.

It quivered at each sound, the house did. If a sparrow brushed a window, the shade snapped up. The bird, startled, flew off! No, not even a bird must touch the house!

The house in the quote above is likened to a human being keeping its peace, which means not stirring up trouble. The narrator compares it to an older, unmarried woman concerned to protect itself and continues the personification with the idea that the house "quivered" at noises, as a frightened person might.

At night, "the house began to die." This is another personification, as a house can shut down or malfunction, but it cannot die liking a living person. However, we have become so used to regarding it as a person that this wording seems natural.

As the house burns, it continues to be treated as a human being:

"Fire!" screamed a voice. The house lights flashed, water pumps shot water from the ceilings. But the solvent spread on the linoleum, licking, eating, under the kitchen door, while the voices took it up in chorus: "Fire, fire, fire!"

The house tried to save itself.

Above, the tapes that run the house are referred to as a "voice" or "voices." The sentence saying that the "house tried to save itself" treats the house as if it has human will or agency.

As the fire tears through the house, it is again personified, this time in vivid terms as a human body:

Its bared skeleton cringing from the heat, its wire, its nerves revealed as if a surgeon had torn the skin off to let the red veins and capillaries quiver in the scalded air.

What are some examples of personification in "There Will Come Soft Rains"?

The house is personified in the story because it and the electronics in it are described as if they had feelings.

In this story, we have a post-apocalyptic world where almost every living creature has died.  The house’s family is nothing but silhouettes in the paint on the side of the house.  The house itself was fully automated though, and therefore it does not realize that the people are dead.  It continues as if they are alive, even though it is personified as fearing that is people are gone.

Until this day, how well the house had kept its peace. How carefully it had inquired, "Who goes there? What's the password?" and, getting no answer from lonely foxes and whining cats, it had shut up its windows and drawn shades in an old maidenly preoccupation with self-protection which bordered on a mechanical paranoia.

This is personification because the house cannot really “keep its peace” the way a person would.  Houses cannot inquire.  Bradbury extends the electronic mind of the house to describing it as if it had actual feelings, because it has been programmed so well that it seems alive.  This personification extends to the disembodied voice that seems to have fear.  It also includes the only remaining inhabitants of the house, the robots.

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.

The little robot cleaning mice do not really have emotions.  Machines cannot think.  However, Bradbury uses personification to describe them as angry that the dog tracked in mud, just like a person might be who had to clean up after it.  The dog, the only living creature in the story, does not last long.  It dies, and the robots just clean it up.  Despite the personification, real life means nothing more to them than garbage.

This story is a cautionary tale about relying too much on technology.  The irony is that the technology that made the humans’ lives easier is just an extension of the technology that killed them.  The nuclear apocalypse is part of the technification of the country.  The people were killed by technology, and technology lives on without them.

What are some examples of personification in "There Will Come Soft Rains"?

The title of Ray Bradbury's 1950 short story is an allusion to a poem with the same title written by Sara Teasdale in 1918. The theme of the two works is similar: mankind's tendency toward self-destruction is an ever-present threat. It is quite likely that the sweeping devastation of World War I inspired Teasdale and the atomic bombing that ended World War II inspired Bradbury, and both works lament the effects of technology when it is turned to dark purposes.

In the story's fifth paragraph, the house's programmed "weather box" sings the children's nursery rhyme that begins, "Rain rain go away," a variation on an English rhyme dating to the reign of Elizabeth I and the stormy weather that aided in the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

The scenes projected inside the children's nursery that feature panthers, giraffes, lions and antelopes allude to another of Bradbury's 1950 works, the short story "The Veldt." Both nurseries represent the fanciful side of technology that could delight and entertain as a contrast to technology that can lay waste to mankind.

The reference to the works of Picasso and Matisse that begin to burn as the house catches fire could be allusions in at least two ways. While both artists were Modernists, their careers and personalities reflected a rivalry. Picasso was splashy and unapologetic while Matisse was more modest and retiring. In a sense, they are two sides of a coin, much like technology, which can be a great benefit or a horrific detriment. Another possible allusion to the artists is a reminder that the power of the natural world, manifested as fire, is far greater than any "masterpiece" that mere man can muster.

What literary devices are used in "There Will Come Soft Rains"?

The main character in this short story is a technologically advanced house. Bradbury makes the house as seemingly human as possible by repeated use of personification. One example is:

The house shuddered, oak bone on bone, its bared skeleton cringing from the heat, its wire, its nerves revealed as if a surgeon had torn the skin off to let the red veins and capillaries quiver in the scalded air. Help, help!

Another is:

At ten o'clock the house began to die.

Bradbury also frequently uses the literary device simile, such as when he compares the fire consuming the house to a person eating a gourmet meal:

It fed upon Picassos and Matisses in the upper halls, like delicacies, baking off the oily flesh, tenderly crisping the canvases into black shavings.

Allusions crop up several times. The most prominent is the house quoting the Sara Teasdale poem from which the story gets its title, "There Will Come Soft Rains," including the cautionary quote:

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,/ If mankind perished utterly

Another example of an allusion that would have been current at the time is the image of the bodies of the families burned into the side of the house. This was a potent image in John Hersey's bestselling book Hiroshima, published a few year before Bradbury wrote his story. People would know from that and from the mention of radioactivity that a nuclear disaster of some sort had occurred.

Bradbury makes frequent use of imagery, which helps us picture the scene. For example, he uses both auditory and visual images in the following:

In the kitchen the breakfast stove gave a hissing sigh and ejected from its warm interior eight pieces of perfectly browned toast, eight eggs sunny side up, sixteen slices of bacon, two coffees, and two cool glasses of milk.

And another sentence employing both auditory and visual imagery is below:

Outside, the garage chimed and lifted its door to reveal the waiting car.

Alliteration occurs most frequent near the end of the story, as the action builds to a crescendo. Some examples include:

Somewhere, sighing, a pump shrugged to a stop. ... faucet mouths gushing green chemical. ...the stove working again, hysterically hissing

As the excitement rises at end, Bradbury also uses hyperbole or exaggeration, as in the following image from the nursery:

ten million animals, running before the fire ...

What are three examples of similes in the story "There Will Come Soft Rains"?

The west side of the house is burnt black except for five white spots. One of these spots is the silhouette of a woman bending to pick flowers "as in a photograph." Similes most often use "like" or "as" in comparing two things. Here, the silhouette of the woman on the side of the house is compared to a photograph. The suggestion is that the mother had been out picking flowers when the nuclear blast occurred. The only thing that remains is her silhouette/photograph on the house.

During children's hour, the nursery comes alive with films on the walls and robotic animals moving about the room. "There was the sound like a great matted yellow hive of bees within a dark bellows, the lazy bumble of a purring lion." The sound of the robots and films are compared to living things. This is to show how "alive" the house is. The irony is that the technology that led to a house that seems alive is also the technology that led to the nuclear capability to destroy all real living things.

"The dinner dishes manipulated like magic tricks, and in the study a click." The dishes are being prepared for dinner as if a magician is manipulating them. This is the magic of the self-sufficient house.

When the house is on fire, the heat breaks the mirrors "like the brittle winter ice." The voices of the house yell fire "like children dying in a forest." Again, the voices are compared to actual living voices which have long since been silenced.

What literary device does Bradbury often use in "There Will Come Soft Rains" when describing the house?

I agree with mrs-campbell and would like to expand upon her answer a bit more.  I must say that after scouring the story, I could find no new examples of personification because she mentioned them all (and even included a couple that weren't exactly personification).  However, just because they are mentioned, doesn't mean they are explained.  My answer will explain how each example is an example of the literary element of personification.

First, when the stove "gave a hissing sigh."  This specifically refers to the house as a person.  A stove cannot make the sound of a sigh, only a person can.  And that sign often can mean boredom or resentment, but definitely something negative (and nothing good).

Second, the house mechanics are focused upon when the "tapes glided under electric eyes."  Note that it is a human that has eyes, nothing else does.  Giving mechanization such human qualities gives an ominous quality to the house and its contents, as if they were alive.

[Next, I have to say that, in my opinion, the third example (even though it is a great example of sound and touch imagery) is not an example of personification.  "Chimed" and "lifted" are not human, but mechanical qualities, so I must go on to the fourth to continue discussion.]

Fourth, the water goes down "a metal throat which digested it."  No doubt that it is only a human (or an animal) that has a "throat," therefore even though that is not a "quality" per se, it is actually a body part!  This is definitely personification here!

Further, shutting the doors and the windows tightly showed "old-maidenly preoccupation with self ... mechanical paranoia."  Yes, both "preoccupation with self" and "paranoia" are human qualities that actually prove to be quite advanced of thought.  Further, any concept of "self" is inherently human.

[Again, I have to disagree with the sixth example being personification specifically of the house.  It is personification of the mice, but yes, they are "angry" as only a human could be "angry."  Mice simply react out of instinct.  So in that case it IS personification, just not that of the house.]

Finally, "the house began to die."  Only living things can die and, although not innately human (but also relating to plants and animals) this could be considered personification as well.

Therefore, due to at least five of the above examples being perfect representations of personification, I must agree that personification is the most used literary element pertaining to the house.

What literary device does Bradbury often use in "There Will Come Soft Rains" when describing the house?

The most often used literary technique to describe the house is personification, where you give inanimate objects human-like characteristics.  This is interesting, considering the house is devoid of humans; making the house and its mechanical components human-like seems to both fill the house with life, and emphasize its emptiness at the same time.  I have listed many examples below, and I hope it helps!:

1.  "the breakfast stove gave a hissing sigh"

2.  "memory tapes glided under electric eyes"

3.  "Outside, the garage chimed and lifted its door to reveal the waiting car"

4.  "hot water whirled them down a metal throat which digested"

5.  "it had shut up its windows and drawn shades in an old-maidenly preoccupation with self—protection which bordered on mechanical paranoia."

6.  "Behind it whirred angry mice, angry at having to pick up mud, angry at inconvenience."

7.  "At ten o'clock the house began to die"

What are three excerpts from "There Will Come Soft Rains" that contain imagery?

Imagery is the description of sensory information, using words to describe something we might experience with our senses. A description of something we might see is called visual imagery; something we might smell is called olfactory imagery; something we might taste is gustatory imagery; something we might feel is tactile imagery; and something we might hear is called auditory imagery.

One example of imagery is when the narrator describes the stove. The narrator says,

In the kitchen the breakfast stove gave a hissing sigh and ejected from its warm interior eight pieces of perfectly browned toast, eight eggs sunny side up, sixteen slices of bacon, two coffees, and two cool glasses of milk.

The description of the "hissing sigh" is an example of auditory imagery, the "warm interior" of the stove is tactile imagery, and the rest of the description is quite visual.

Another example is when the narrator says that "the rain tapped on the empty house, echoing." This is an example of auditory imagery.

Yet another example (there is lots of imagery in this text) is when the narrator describes the cleaning mice:

Out of warrens in the wall, tiny robot mice darted. The rooms were a crawl with the small cleaning animals, all rubber and metal. They thudded against chairs, whirling their moustached runners, kneading the rug nap, sucking gently at hidden dust. Then, like mysterious invaders, they popped into their burrows. Their pink electric eyes faded.

This passage is full of auditory imagery (the mice thudding and whirling and sucking like tiny vacuums) as well as visual imagery (the rubber and metal, their pink electric eyes).

What form of characterization and structure did the author use in "There Will Come Soft Rains"?

The poem "There Will Come Soft Rains," written by Sara Teasdale, uses indirect characterization instead of direct characterization.  Upon first glance, the poem appears to have many characters -- frogs, swallows, robins, etc.; however, those living creatures are not the main character(s).  If they were, then the poem might be considered to have more direct characterization.  The main character of Teasdale's poem though is Mother Nature, and the outlook of Mother Nature is not a happy one.  Sure the birds and frogs are happy and singing, but Nature itself is presented as completely uncaring toward mankind itself.  The lines 

"Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree

if mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,

Would scarcely know that we were gone." 

suggest that Nature does not care at all about the presence of humans.  That's cold.  At least loving or hating mankind would be an emotional response.  That would show that Nature at least registers some kind of importance toward humans.  A complete lack of realization that people are there or not means that Nature simply does not see any importance to people . . . at all.  Teasedale doesn't say this directly, which is why it is indirect characterization.  

As for structure, the poem is written in rhyming couplets.  As for rhythm and meter, the poem is not consistent.  It's close to iambic pentameter, but doesn't maintain it.  

Why does Bradbury personify the house in "There Will Come Soft Rains"?

The automated house in “There Will Come Soft Rains” is thoroughly personified. Despite there being no actual human beings to guard, serve, and protect, the house still goes about its business with the same degree of efficiency as it's always done.

In carrying out its pre-programmed duties, the house is described as having "an old-maidenly preoccupation with self-protection which bordered on a mechanical paranoia." This is a classic example of personification, the attribution of human characteristics to non-human objects. Automated houses can't be “old-maidenly” or show signs of paranoia; only humans can.

But as the entire human race has been wiped out in a nuclear holocaust, the house's human characteristics are now more decidedly more marked than ever before. With no actual humans to care for, the house has turned into a kind of parody of what a human being is like—and a particularly unpleasant human, at that.

In this bleak, post-apocalyptic world, the automated house is now all that passes for humanity. Ironically, the house, in its preoccupation with self-protection, is displaying the same kind of behavior that led humans to build weapons of mass destruction—the very same weapons that resulted in the extinction of all human life on Earth.

Which formalism devices, specifically foreshadowing and personification, are used in "There Will Come Soft Rains"?

I'll begin with foreshadowing, since its purpose is fairly straightforward. In "There Will Come Soft Rains", foreshadowing is evident in the reading of the poem. The poem suggests that "Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree/if mankind perished utterly." The humans are already gone at the beginning of the story, but this hints that the last vestige of humanity, the house, will be destroyed as well. Another example is in the death of the dog. Besides the house, the dog is the only character to which the reader can identify, & the only living thing in this post-apocalyptic setting. When the dog "spun in a frenzy and died", it hints that the house too, may end in a frenzy, and die itself.

This particular story, like many of Bradbury's works, is rich with figurative language. The entire story is centered around the use of personification, as the house is essentially the protagonist. Some examples of personification used include:

"It had shut up its windows and drawn shades in an old-maidenly preoccupation with self-protection which bordered on a mechanical paranoia."

"But the fire was clever."

"The house shuddered, oak bone on bone, its bared skeleton cringing from the heat, its wire, its nerves revealed as if a surgeon had torn the skin off to let the red veins and capillaries quiver in the scalded air."

This last quote is particularly intense, as it combines personification, metaphor, and simile in one vivid package. All of these examples, (and many others) combine to form a perception of the house as life-like and intelligent. This evokes sympathy from the reader, as the house is the only character (except perhaps the dog) to which all can relate. One can feel the isolation and loneliness, and feels sorrow at the passing of the house, almost as though a person is perishing, rather than an inanimate object.

In "There Will Come Soft Rains," what are two purposeful descriptions Bradbury gives of the house?

In Ray Bradbury's famous short story, technology collides with Nature, and it is the natural world which prevails. The setting, therefore, is extremely significant because it is the element which the author employs in order to express his theme.

Two descriptions of the house that are significant are of (1) the nursery walls and (2) the Sara Teasdale poem describing the burgeoning of Spring. 

1. the nursery walls

Much as in another Bradbury story, "The Veldt," the nursery creates a virtual reality of a "crisp" meadow with the sound of bees and the "lazy bumble of a purring lion." The "patter of okapi feet" is sounded, as well, as is the soft murmur of rain, then patches of "warm endless sky" appear as the jungle animals approach the water holes. These images, though beautiful, are false and but transitory.

2. the poem, "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Sara Teasdale

Again, the motif of nature presents itself in the lovely poem of Teasdale that creates a cruel irony with its final lines,

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

For, while at first it seems that the technology of the atomic explosion has annihilated the living creatures and the automated house continues its functions, oblivious to nature's defeats, the wind rises at ten o'clock and a tree limb crashes through the kitchen window, knocking cleaning solvent onto the stove, igniting the room.  Soon the fire spreads, but the automatic sprinklers cannot control the fire fueled by the oxygen entering through the broken window.

"Smoke and silence...Dawn showed faintly in the east...." The house and its occupants are destroyed, but nature survives as a new day begins upon "the heaped rubble and steam," the destruction of man's technology. Man and his technology are transitory; it is Nature that is supreme, for it prevails over destruction; nothing is more powerful than Nature.

In the story "There Will Come Soft Rains," what are some examples of imagery? How do they contribute to the story's theme?

In "There Will Come Soft Rains," Bradbury uses lots of images to reinforce the story's themes. Probably the most striking of these is the McClellan's "charred" house, the only house which has survived the nuclear blast. This "black" and "burned" house reflects the destructive nature of humankind, one of the story's key themes.

Similarly, Bradbury reinforces this theme of human destruction by creating an image of disease and decay when he discusses the family's dog. To do this, Bradbury uses words like "sores," "decay" and "whining," which are combined with a contrast of the dog's condition:

The dog, once huge and fleshy, but now gone to bone.

The dog thus becomes a potent symbol of human destruction and the potential dangers of technology. 

Finally, when Bradbury describes the folding of the tables, he invokes an image of a butterfly. This serves to highlight the idea that nature will go on, whether humans are alive or not. This is further reinforced by the inclusion of Sara Teasdale's poem "There Will Come Soft Rains."