Sunday, December 20, 2009

In "There Will Come Soft Rains," what conclusion can you draw from the text about what happened to the rest of the houses in the town?

The main house in "There Will Come Soft Rains" is the last functioning home in the city after a nuclear war.  This is evidenced both by the absence of people and by the revelation, at ten-fifteen, of silhouettes left in the charcoal dust on the side of the house.  At last, due to a storm, fire breaks out and consumes the house as there is no one left to fight the blaze.


Based on this example, it is reasonable to assume that other houses continued to function well, until some event that required human intervention occurred.



Also, though there is nothing left of the house save one wall and a lone voice, there are hints that the fire may have spread before dying down.  Towards the beginning of the scene, Bradbury writes, “It had sent flames outside the house” and, then, at the end, “A great quantity of smoke,” as though the fire still burned somewhere and would make its way to the other houses of the town.



We can conclude that without humans to stop, or repair damage from storms, fires, and malfunctions, the other houses will die, too.

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