Ray Bradbury – Page 4 – Interesting Literature

A Summary and Analysis of Ray Bradbury’s ‘The Pedestrian’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The Pedestrian’ is a 1951 short story by Ray Bradbury (1920-2012), which is included in his 1953 collection The Golden Apples of the Sun. In some ways a precursor to Bradbury’s more famous novel Fahrenheit 451, ‘The Pedestrian’ is set in a future world in which people sit mindlessly and passively in front of their television sets every evening.

The ‘pedestrian’ of the story’s title is the one man in the city who refuses to do so, and doesn’t even own a television.

A Summary and Analysis of Ray Bradbury’s ‘There Will Come Soft Rains’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘There Will Come Soft Rains’ is, like many stories Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) wrote in the early 1950s, haunted by the fear of nuclear war. Sometimes known by the slightly longer title, ‘August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains’, the story appeared in Bradbury’s 1951 collection The Martian Chronicles and remains one of his best-known and most widely studied short stories.

The story is set in a house in 2026, when nuclear war has annihilated human life. However, the technological devices in the house, such as the mechanical clock and dishwasher, continue to perform their daily automated duties, until they, too, are overwhelmed and destroyed by the forces of nature.

A Summary and Analysis of Ray Bradbury’s ‘The Golden Kite, the Silver Wind’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Perhaps the greatest literary rendition of ‘rock, paper, scissors’ ever written, ‘The Golden Kite, the Silver Wind’ is a 1953 short story by the American writer Ray Bradbury (1920-2012). The story tells of two cities ruled by Mandarins or emperors, who continually seek to destroy each other by building their city walls into different shapes which will ‘beat’ the other.

‘The Golden Kite, the Silver Wind’ is an allegory for the Cold War, so its signs and symbols need some unpicking and analysis to be fully appreciated and understood. Before we come to the analysis, however, it might be worth sketching out the plot of the story.

Hollywood Beckons Again for Bradbury: Adaptations of Ray Bradbury’s Work

By Spencer Blohm

Chances are, whether you realize it or not, you’ve heard of Ray Bradbury. Not only a prolific writer of science fiction, fantasy, and children’s novels, Bradbury wrote stories that were adapted into comic books, stage plays, television episodes, and movies. One of the most recent adaptations – a recently debuted ABC series The Whispers (based on the Bradbury short story “Zero Hour” and executive produced by Steven Spielberg) – is just the latest in a long line of work that has made the jump from page to screen. Before you decide to catch The Whispers pilot episode (which debuted last week and is easily watchable on ABC Go or DTV) there are other Bradbury adaptations you might want to check out first. Given Bradbury’s long and storied history with Hollywood, it’s no wonder that creative types keep looking to his work for inspiration.

A Short Analysis of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451

‘I heard this typing. I went down in the basement of the UCLA library and by God there was a room with 12 typewriters in it that you could rent for 10 cents a half-hour. And there were eight or nine students in there working away like crazy.’ This was Ray Bradbury, speaking about the … Read more