Assignment Prompt - Essay Example

Both the stories, “August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains” by Ray Bradbury and “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut fall into the genre of science fiction. Science fiction always belongs to a genre that is separate from other literary genres and appeals most to the senses. The stories are brilliant for their extraordinary imaginative plots, images, and descriptions that appeal the readers of all ages and have fabulously enchanted me. The most haunting question about “August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains” is the one that questions the reason for Ray Bradbury’s choice of apocalyptic setting. The extensive use of the apocalyptic setting is a bit confusing and the query revolves around its purpose more than anything else. For “Harrison Bergeron”, the only query that would come to a reader’s mind is why the author shows the death or rather the brutal murder of his only protagonist who attains almost a stature of a superhero. Does this incident bear any special symbolic connotation?

“August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains” by Ray Bradbury falls in the genre of science fiction but if one delves deep into the plot of the text and try to gaze behind the apparent presentation of the story, it is not easy to find the symbolic interpretation of the story. Bradbury uses personification deliberately to display the emptiness. Bradbury wanted to reveal to the readers that amidst the hustle and bustle of the house, something is amiss and this indicates a persistent absence of human beings and human emotion. Bradbury wanted to portray that the fate of the house and the fate of humanity is synonymous. The impact of the complete absence of human characters makes the story all the more symbolic. The intention of the author to portray that too much mechanical life will destroy human civilization is also aptly displayed through the absence of human characters. The effect of the absence of human character on the plot of the story is far-reaching and the absence makes the inner theme of the storyline poignant. Here, the personified objects of the house are the characters. The protagonist of the house can be considered as an empty house whose inhabitants are dead because of a nuclear reaction. The storyline, due to the personification of inanimate objects not only renders a proper appearance of science fiction but also helps to carry forward the underlying powerful message of the story that humans are slaughtering the planet and all the innovation and technologies created to make life easy and better, are slowly destroying the planet.

Quite amazingly, the headphone of “Harrison Bergeron” was designed like contemporary earphone. The headphones are tied to one’s ears and produce high-quality sound. The sound of the earphone is so loud that it seems quite distracting, making the characters of the story handicapped. The radio transmitters are tied to the intelligent people that distract and prevent the thought process by emitting sharp noises, two to three times per minute. The story was written when the concept of noise pollution was not an alarming issue yet the symbols used in the story and the loud noise produced to distract, are quite contemporary as they do in recent times and we refer to them as noise pollution. Loud noise from any electronic device still causes a distraction to our thought process.