What is the tone in "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury?

I would describe the tone of this story as lyrical or poetic. The "soft" in the title indicates this. The lyrical, gentle tone provides an ironic juxtaposition to a story of nuclear destruction. 

An example of a lyrical passage is as follows:

The garden sprinklers whirled up in golden founts, filling the soft morning air with scatterings of brightness. The water pelted windowpanes, running down the charred west side where the house had been burned evenly free of its white paint. The entire west face of the house was black, save for five places. Here the silhouette in paint of a man mowing a lawn. Here, as in a photograph, a woman bent to pick flowers. Still farther over, their images burned on wood in one titanic instant, a small boy, hands flung into the air; higher up, the image of a thrown ball, and opposite him a girl, hands raised to catch a ball which never came down.

The five spots of paint—the man, the woman, the children, the ball—remained. The rest was a thin charcoaled layer.

The gentle sprinkler rain filled the garden with falling light.

The "golden founts" and "scatterings of brightness" as well as the gentle and artistic images, like photographs, of human beings doing ordinary things such as picking flowers or playing with a ball, make the reader feel acutely the senselessness and horror of nuclear war. Bradbury shows in images how the immense technology of war destroys ordinary people going about their everyday lives. By using lyrical images rather than telling us "war is bad," Bradbury allows us to experience the loss it brings emotionally.

Bradbury was a poetic writer who used imagery to make his point and no doubt was influenced by the language of the Teasdale poem he quotes. In his cautionary tale, he hopes the reader will understand how beautiful life is in all its ordinariness, even with the creepy undertone of the mechanical "mice" and "rats" that go about their business senselessly with no humans left to serve. Technology should not be allowed to be in control, the story says, for it is from human life that it derives its meaning: and without humans it quickly reverts to a state of nature, as the house does once the humans who lived in are dead. 

The lyrical language mourns the loss of beautiful ordinary life that a nuclear war could bring--and, Bradbury hoped, prevent it. 

What is the tone in "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury?

I would describe the tone as time-sensitive. I say this because the author keeps a date in the title and the sound of clocks marking the routines of a regular day:

Two o'clock, sang a voice.

Delicately sensing decay at last, the regiments of mice hummed out as softly as blown gray leaves in an electrical wind.

The voice in this piece certainly feels like a dystopian work. It feels void of humanity but full of the evidence of previous human existence. The references to technology make the piece feel mechanical or technological.

Ironically, the description of images feels positive, almost happy. It is as if sounds of life can be heard and the colors and textures of objects in the text are vividly imagined.

I would also describe it as empty. It is obvious to see how the humans have all gone. It feels like a society so mechanized that the mechanics have outlasted human beings:

The house was an altar with ten thousand attendants, big, small, servicing, attending, in choirs. But the gods had gone away, and the ritual of the religion continued senselessly, uselessly.

How does Bradbury convey tone through diction in "There Will Come Soft Rains" exposition?

The diction in the exposition of "There Will Come Soft Rains" creates an immediate contrast between the technology running the house and the ominous emptiness within it.

On one hand, the voice of the house is pleasant and helpful. It "sings" its reminders and even presents them in an upbeat and playful voice: "Tick-tock, seven o'clock, time to get up, time to get up, seven o'clock!" It provides a loving reminder of an anniversary and friendly reminders to pay various bills. The sing-song reminders continue as the voice of the house provides a weather update: "Rain, rain, go away; umbrellas, raincoats for today..." The word choice as used to characterize the house as engaging, cheerful, and helpful.

In contrast, the diction used to characterize the house itself is quite different. The house lays empty. The clock "[repeats] its sounds into the emptiness." The breakfast stove "hisses" and "ejects" toast, eggs, bacon, coffee, and milk. It is noted that there are no slamming doors and no heels running across carpets, and only the rain creates sounds in a completely desolate house.

This contrast based on carefully selected diction creates a striking image of all that is wrong. Technology was created for human use, and without it, everything is rendered meaningless. The technology of the house makes great effort to continue in its mission to serve, but its purpose is now gone. Bradbury uses italics to further show how diction creates a sharp division between the intended function and the actual reality of this technologically-driven house.

How does Bradbury convey tone through diction in "There Will Come Soft Rains" exposition?

Diction is the author's style of writing, the language they choose to use. Exposition is the background a story needs to supply to make sense.

In "There Will Come Soft Rains," Bradbury uses lyrical or poetic diction to convey a tone of poignancy (sadness) and futility as the house goes about the daily tasks meant to make life easy for its owners. The house has no way to know that the family it serves has been annihilated in what appears to have been a nuclear war. Bradbury relies on imagery, description that appeals to the five senses of sight, hearing, sound, taste, and smell, to convey the tone of sadness that permeates the story. For example, we learn that

The garden sprinklers whirled up in golden founts, filling the soft morning air with scatterings of brightness . . .

We can picture the water, described in gentle, lyrical, positive terms: "golden" and "bright" in the soft air. This makes it all the sadder when we learn, through another set of images, that the family is dead:

The entire west face of the house was black, save for five places. Here the silhouette in paint of a man mowing a lawn. Here, as in a photograph, a woman bent to pick flowers. Still farther over, their images burned on wood in one titanic instant, a small boy, hands flung into the air; higher up, the image of a thrown ball, and opposite him a girl, hands raised to catch a ball which never came down.

In the quote above, we can see exactly the kind of ordinary activities the family was engaged in when the nuclear bomb hit. This description brings to life the tragedy of their surprise deaths. Bradbury doesn't tell us something bad has happened: he shows it to us.

What mood does the setting create in Ray Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains"?

The mood of the story is rather matter-of fact, and this is perfectly in keeping with the message that Bradbury wishes to convey. As all human life has been wiped from the face of the earth, there's simply no point in adopting a style of writing that conveys hopelessness or despair—or any other emotion, for that matter. Now technology has taken over, and technology, whether it's in the form of a smart home or the atomic weapons that have brought about a nuclear holocaust, is of its very nature devoid of emotion.

So Bradbury adapts his written style to the new order of things. His job is to describe as faithfully and as dispassionately as he can the condition of the planet in the wake of nuclear Armageddon. In the unerring detail of his descriptions, he effortlessly gives us a chilling sense of what life would be like on earth if the entire human race were to be wiped out.

What mood does the setting create in Ray Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains"?

The setting acquires importance in Bradbury's story as it is a testament to both the greatest of human achievement and the folly of human action.  The technological marvel of the house is impressive.  One can only find the invention of the house breathtaking with its self- cleaning mechanism and its ability to provide amenities and luxuries to its inhabitants.  Yet, when it becomes evident that it is human destruction that has rendered a world in which people no longer live, the setting of the story becomes a dual symbol.  The marvel of modern science in the house has to be put alongside the death and destruction that science has caused.  

The world that Bradbury has constructed is one in which scientific prowess is evident, but no one is alive to enjoy it.  The setting acquires importance because it is a reminder of the greatest of attributes of human beings in terms of their spirit of invention.  At the same time, the setting becomes a stark reminder of how destructive human capacity can be.  It is here where the setting gains significance.  It enables the reader to reflect about the wonders that exist in their own world alongside the capacity for destruction.

What mood does the setting create in Ray Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains"?

Ray Bradbury’s clever story “There Will Come Soft Rains” about a futuristic home run by automatons focuses on the emotional depravity in the world without human beings.  What is the point of the home that keeps on without anyone to serve, clean, or cook?  Yet, the house continues to function sans mankind.

The story without any human characters demonstrates the difference between man and a robotic world.  The atmosphere of the story seems initially sterile.

On the other hand, the technology which does not appear to need man creates a chilling atmosphere.  The clock says that it is time to wake up; but, the house is empty. The breakfast is made, yet there is no one to eat it. On a wall outside where the paint has all been burned off can be seen sillouettes of the family that was working in the yard when the nuclear bomb exploded.

It is not until the dog comes back to his home starving and dying from the lack of human connection that the mood becomes frighteningly devoid of emotions.  Sadly, the house will not help the dog and is only concerned with the removal of the dog’s dead body with no remorse for the dead pet.

Time influences the mood of the story.  The story begins with the automated clock starting the day with the house following a chronologically mandated order.  Obviously, the house and the humans who lived there created a world of order and organization.  Unfortunately despite the technological innovations, war has eradicated  humanity. The rest of the city is “rubble and ashes.”  

Still, the world of the robots goes on. The cleaning mice hurry about the house to be sure it is free of debris.  When the fire occurs, the sprinkler system attempts to prevent the house from burning up…this is the soft rain that falls. 

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

"Fire!" screamed a voice. The house lights flashed, water pumps shot water from the ceilings.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.

In the end, the mood of the story impacts the lesson that the author shares with his reader.  Humanity has been given the charge of the nature.  Man must care for the world.  If something goes wrong and man becomes extinct, the story depicts the monotonous world devoid of man. Time goes on with the automated clock continuing to give the time.