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There Will Come Soft Rains

by Ray Bradbury

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What is the point of view in "There Will Come Soft Rains"?

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The point of view in "There Will Come Soft Rains" is third person omniscient. This perspective allows the narrator to describe events and settings both inside and outside the house, even after the house is destroyed. The narration shifts focus between different elements, such as the fire and the house, providing a comprehensive view that wouldn't be possible with first person or third person limited narration.

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Most stories tend to be written in one of two points of view: first person and third person. (While there is also a second person point of view, that one tends to be far more obscure, and would not apply to this particular story in any case.) First person point of view refers to a story in which the narrator is a character within the story itself. Third person, on the other hand, refers to a perspective by which the narrator exists outside of the story, and is relating events without directly participating in them.

Ray Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains" is a story told from third-person point of view (and more specifically, as others have already pointed out, third person omniscient rather than third person limited).

Interestingly, point of view is one of those foundational elements which shapes a story and thus can be found...

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everywhere within that story (including, in this case, in the story's very structure). Note, for example, that while the story centers around the house, it is not told directly from the house's perspective. Instead, Bradbury describes the house as it continues according to its already established routine.

One of the most notable passages, however, emerges late in the story when the fire breaks out. Here we see the versatility of third person omniscient, as Bradbury is able to change his perspective, switching between the fire and the house. Consider the following passage, where the narration now follows the fire rather than the house:

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! (Bradbury, "There Will Come Soft Rains")

You cannot do these kinds of shifts in perspective with conventional first person narration (and it can also be very tricky in third person limited, where the narration tends to follow the viewpoint of a particular character—even if the narrator is not identical to that character as it would be in first person). This kind of technique immediately suggests, by its very presence, third person omniscient (where the narrator resides entirely outside the story, and can thus freely discuss the experiences and perspectives of any of the characters within it).

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The point-of-view is third person omniscient. There are two choices in this story for point of view: third person omniscient or the perspective of the house, for the only "character" in the story is the house. However, we can't be getting the point of view of the house for two reasons. First, the narrative takes us all over the place, inside and outside, and continues the narrative after the house has died.

Second, the narrative voice comments on the house as if watching it from afar and passing judgement. The narrator says:

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.

The omniscient narrator is used effectively in this story. He doesn't tell us everything, but he is able to reveal to us all we need to know to construct an understanding of what has happened.

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Ray Bradbury's 1950 story "There Will Come Soft Rains" features a third-person omniscient point of view. This means that the narrator observes and describes action but does not participate in it and has the ability to understand and communicate the thoughts and feelings of the characters. The narrator's tone is dispassionate as the automated house continues to go about its programmed tasks in the absence of the family it served prior to the nuclear devastation that has claimed their lives. 

Though there are no humans in the story, the narrator describes the emotions of the robot mice who emerge to clean up after 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 itself is anthropomorphized, "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", as it is consumed by fire at the story's conclusion.

Bradbury, Ray. "The Will Come Soft Rains" Doubleday, 1950.

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What point of view is "There Will Come Soft Rains" written in?

The point of view in this story is third-person omniscient. An omniscient, or all-knowing, narrator is able to communicate to the reader the thoughts and feelings of all of the characters, as well as the sights, sounds, and other details of the setting. The only characters in the story, however, are the machines and robots that operate the now defunct house, and an old dog "gone to bone and covered in sores."

If Bradbury had chosen to write this story from a first-person perspective, his options would have been rather limited. He might have chosen to narrate the story from the point of view of the voice that emanates from different parts of the house, but given that this voice is automated and detached from any personality, it would be no better, while certainly more limited, than the third-person omniscient point of view that he opted for.

The narrative point of view throughout the story is also objective and prosaic, rather than subjective and emotionally invested. There is a matter-of-fact tone to the narration which helps to convey the desolation and the eerie, post-apocalyptic quiet of the scene. All human agency has been lost in the story and has given way to lifeless artificial intelligence. This absence of human agency is reflected in the objective, matter-of-fact tone of the narrative point of view.

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What is the point of view in "There Will Come Soft Rains"?

You asked more than one question so I have had to edit it down to just one, focussing on the point of view of this excellent dystopian story. Well, in a story where there are no characters whatsover - because they have all been slaughtered by some form of future super weapon - it is clear that the point of view is third person omniscient. This point of view is adopted when the narrator takes a God-like position and can see everything from every perspective. This explains the way we are able to zoom around the inside and outside of the house with ease and see and hear all that is going on.

Of course, this point of view is a careful choice of Bradbury's to ensure that we as readers see this amazingly technologically advanced house go through its normal daily motions. But there is a central irony that Bradbury establishes very clearly, and this is partly achieved through the poem that the computer recites. Bradbury seems to be pointing us towards the fact that the human species is immensely fragile and in a tenuous position. The extent of our technology does not matter, for we are able to extinguish ourselves at the press of a button so easily. The truth of this is displayed in the poem:

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.

In this world, Bradbury, through third person omniscient point of view, presents us with the true irony of our condition as humans. Yes, we are incredibly advanced, and this will only continue, but let that not make us arrogant as to forget our true delicate place in the scheme of things.

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