"There Will Come Soft Rains" | |||
---|---|---|---|
Short story by Ray Bradbury | |||
Country | United States | ||
Language | English | ||
Genre(s) | Science fiction, post-apocalyptic fiction | ||
Publication | |||
Published in | Collier's Weekly | ||
Publication type | Periodical | ||
Media type | Print magazine | ||
Publication date | May 6, 1950 (issue date) | ||
Chronology | |||
|
"There Will Come Soft Rains" is a science fiction short story by author Ray Bradbury written as a chronicle about a lone house that stands intact in a California city that has otherwise been obliterated by a nuclear bomb, and then is destroyed in a fire caused by a windstorm. The title is from a 1918 poem of the same name by Sara Teasdale that was published during World War I and the Spanish flu pandemic. The story was first published in 1950 in two different versions in two separate publications, a one-page short story in Collier's magazine and a chapter of the fix-up novel The Martian Chronicles .
The author regarded it as "the one story that represents the essence of Ray Bradbury". [1] Bradbury's foresight in recognizing the potential for the complete self-destruction of humans by nuclear war in the work was recognized by the Pulitzer Prize Board in conjunction with awarding a Special Citation in 2007 that noted, "While time has (mostly) quelled the likelihood of total annihilation, Bradbury was a lone voice among his contemporaries in contemplating the potentialities of such horrors." [2] The author considered the short story as the only one in The Martian Chronicles to be a work of science fiction. [3]
A nuclear catastrophe leaves the city of Allendale,California, entirely desolate. However, within one miraculously preserved house, the daily routine continues – automatic systems within the home prepare breakfast, clean the house, make beds, wash dishes, and address the former residents without any knowledge of their current state as burnt silhouettes on one of the walls, similar to Human Shadow Etched in Stone.
That evening, the house recites to the absent hostess a random selection by her favorite poet, "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Sara Teasdale. A windstorm blows a tree branch through a window in the kitchen, starting a fire. The house's systems desperately attempt to put out the fire, but the doomed home burns to the ground in a night. The following dawn, all that remains is a single wall, which contains an automated system that endlessly reads aloud the date and time.
The short story first appeared in the May 6, 1950 issue of Collier's magazine, [4] and was revised and included as a chapter titled "August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains" in Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles that was also first published in May 1950. The official publication dates for the two versions were only two days apart. The 1997 edition of The Martian Chronicles advanced all dates in the 1950 edition by 31 years, changing the title to "August 2057: There Will Come Soft Rains".