Martian Chronicles Sparknotes

During the twentieth century American faced the industrial age. Many new inventions came in the making such as the atomic bomb and satellites. America was also faced with the space age and the Cold war, along with racial tensions and religious intolerances. All these events leading up to 1950, inspired Ray Bradbury to write The Martian Chronicles, where Bradbury combined the power struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union with the new rocket technology and space exploration, and created for the readers, the possible outcomes as technology took over the lives of humans. In The Martian Chronicles, Bradbury first started with how the people on Mars lived peacefully with their environment, and allowed technology to better their lives,

Like Spender, as Captain Wilder began to learn more about the Martian culture he realized how strong their civilization was, and that Earth could definitely adopt some of its principles to better its own civilization. “One day Earth will be as Mars is today...It’s an object lesson in civilization. We’ll learn from Mars” (Bradbury 55). Clearly Captain Wilder knew that the Martian’s way of life was the reason they were so successful until only disease killed them off. But Wilder spoke too soon. During the fourth expedition, instead of adapting and living on Mars the same way as the Martians had, the Earthmen began to plant trees, and other agricultural goods. This may not have seemed like a big deal, but with all the new plants, the Earthmen were increasing the oxygen level in the atmosphere causing an imbalance on the planet which ending up causing changes on Mars. Through this story Bradbury wanted the reader to realize that not only did Earthmen destroy Earth they were beginning to destroy Mars too. “We’ll rip Mars up, rip the skin off, and change it to fit ourselves”(Bradbury 54). This showed Earthmen lack of care for nature and even though they must have known that bringing all the new plants would one day ruin the planet, they didn’t care because what they were doing satisfied their desires. According to Batterman,

In the chapter “There Will Come Soft Rains”, the year was 2026. An atomic war had already occurred and the McClellan family understood the outcome when technology got out of control especially with the Great War that followed the atomic war. It was said that Earthmen had a talent for ruining beautiful things, and for science to run too far ahead of them, too quickly, and the people soon got lost in a mechanical wilderness. (Gallagher 201). In hopes of a new life, the family decided to move to Mars and forget all the laws and principles they had followed on Earth. The McClellan family decided to build a new life in an ancient Martian city. In order to forget the past, and start fresh, the father burned documents, and any papers from Earth. “I’m burning a way of life…Science ran too far… and people got lost...Wars got bigger and bigger and finally killed Earth” (Bradbury 179-180). The papers symbolized their past life on Earth, and by burning them, it representdc destroying the foundation of the Earth civilization, since laws, important documents and everything were written down. Bradbury whose writing career took shape at a time when America was in the midst of the Cold War clearly wanted The Martian Chronicles to emphasize the outcomes and horrors of technology taking over our