52 pages • 1 hour read
There Will Come Soft Rains
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Themes
The Limits of Scientific Progress
The story suggests that scientific progress is attended by dangers and has limits that cannot be overcome. In 1950, when vacuum cleaners and home televisions were just beginning to become widespread, the technology portrayed in “There Will Come Soft Rains” would have seemed unimaginably advanced. Every problem in domestic life is solved and automated by the house’s technology, from cooking to cleaning. The house even automates simple pleasures, lighting a cigar and reading a poem at the end of the day. The walls of the children’s nursery display realistic savannah scenes, complete with animals and their sounds. The effect suggested is almost virtual reality; indeed, the animals react in real time when the fire destroys the nursery: “Blue lions roared, purple giraffes bounded off” (255).
Given these domestic technologies, it seems that humans in 2057 have lives of leisure and wonder compared to humans of 1950. Yet, despite the technological advancement of the house, nature wins out. The association between technology and the order-obsessed nature of the house suggests a fundamental trait of technological development: humans create new technologies to impose order or gain control. Automating processes makes them easier and more orderly, and the house in the story automates life itself. What could be easier than living in a house that cooks, cleans, and looks after itself?
The story does not deliver a clear moral judgment about whether this automated mode of living is ideal. However, it seems to suggest that this level of control is unsustainable, even with the most advanced technology. The fine-tuned balance of the house is no match for the clever chaos of the natural world. Though the house “shuts up its windows and draw[s] its shades” to close itself off from that natural world (249), nature breaks in. It happens in the form of a climactic fire, which destroys the house, leaving behind only the “skeletons” (255). Notably, this fire starts with a falling tree branch, highlighting its connection to nature and the natural world. Another noteworthy facet of this climactic scene is that fire becomes a double-edged sword for the house: The robotic mice make use of an incinerator to burn detritus, but the fire started by nature is far beyond its control.
Order and Chaos
The fire that destroys the house not only reveals the inability of technology to gain supremacy over nature but also represents chaos and entropy. The battle between technology and nature on the surface of the story might be boiled down to a more fundamental thematic opposition: order versus chaos.
The house stands for order—the order of domestic life. It holds its now-dead inhabitants to a strict routine. Cleaning is central to this schedule, as the kitchen cleans after itself and robotic mice appear at scheduled intervals to sweep the floors. This recurring focus on cleanliness only serves to highlight the house’s thematic function as a representation of order.
The house represents order that is imposed by humans on the natural world. This is made clear by the proliferation of animal-related imagery within the house. The house is cleaned by robotic mice that come out of the walls like “mysterious invaders” (248). A natural enemy of domestic life, the mouse, is thus turned into an ally in the house’s endless quest for order. Likewise, in the nursery, nature is tamed and captured by technology as the walls display scenes of animals cavorting and robotic bugs crawl along the floor.
The natural world captured and subjected to the order of the house contrasts with the natural world outside the house. The narrator provides only hints, describing how the house keeps out the “lonely foxes” and other wildlife that approaches it (249). Even a “leaf fragment” blowing under the door sets off the house’s diligent cleaning robots (250). Not a trace of the natural world is allowed to enter the house without being challenged.
Nature, in its spontaneity, represents chaos. It is incompatible with the order represented by the house. The foxes and sparrows are unscheduled and unwelcome visitors, and leaf fragments are foreign objects to be removed Not a trace of nature, in its chaos, is allowed to upset the pristinely arranged world of the house.
Order, however, cannot last when faced with entropy—gradual breakdown is inherent in nature. Where leaf fragments and foxes failed to penetrate the house’s defenses, a more destructive representative of entropy, fire, overcomes the house’s defenses. Though the house acts as an intelligent entity to preserve its internal order, the fire is ultimately cleverer. Though humans may attempt to control the world by imposing order, the story suggests order cannot hold out against chaos indefinitely.
Death and the Passage of Time
Time is a major concern for Bradbury, who changed the story’s setting from 1985 to 2057. As a work of science fiction in the postapocalyptic mode, the story is overtly concerned with human development over time and the eventual consequences of that development.
Closely related to the passage of time, death acts as a central theme of “There Will Come Soft Rains.” The dead family who occupied the house looms large in the exposition of the story; the dog who lived with them returns to die in the house during the story’s rising action; and the house dies at the story’s climax. Death is yet another function of entropy, symbolizing the inevitable victory of chaos over order and nature over humanity.
Timekeeping functions both as a symbol of order and an essential function of life. The house indicates its continued life through the tracking of time, as its various robotic appendages perform different tasks at their appointed hours. Likewise, the house organizes its inhabitants’ lives into minute blocks of time. The rhythmic exactness of this routine almost borders on absurdity as the voice-clock gives reminders like “Seven nine, breakfast time, seven nine!” (247; italics in the original).
The narrative of the house’s activities is punctuated by italicized announcements of the time. At first, the narrator attributes these announcements to voices in the living room and kitchen, but the announcements soon become a seamless part of the narration: “Ten o’clock. The sun came out from behind the rain […] Ten-fifteen. The garden sprinklers whirled up in golden founts, filling the soft morning air with scatterings of brightness” (248). These announcements appear throughout the day until about 9:00 p.m., when the house’s inhabitants would have started getting ready for bed.
Timekeeping functions not only as a symbol of the house’s orderly nature but also of its awareness and sentience. When the dog dies, it lays for an hour before the house notes the time and rouses itself to clean once more: “Two o’clock, sang a voice. Delicately sensing decay at last, the regiments of mice hummed out as softly as blown gray leaves in an electrical wind” (250). As everything in the house is automated and timed, the house could not function without keeping track of the time. The house’s sentience is closely tied to its timekeeping capacities, and time does not escape the house’s endless obsession with order—at least until the end.
In the final scene, the last broken voice in the wake of the fire simply repeats the date: “Today is August 5, 2057, today is August 5, 2057, today is…” (257). Without the ability to track the hour, it seems likely that the house will no longer be able to keep track of the date. The loss of its timekeeping abilities thus indicates the house’s metaphorical death.
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By Ray Bradbury
