August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rain

1. Questions

1.1. 1. The house is mechanical so it does everything for you.

1.2. 2. The paint formed 5 silhouettes of people.

1.3. 3. The people died in the nuclear war.

1.4. 4. The house is protecting itself from the war.

1.5. 5. The dog has not been fed since the owners were killed.

1.6. 6. The house cleans up the dog's remains.

1.7. 7. They play cards and drink martinis.

1.8. 8. They play in their nursery.

1.9. 9. The family was the McClellan's.

1.10. 10. The alarms went off when the fire started to warn the residents and tried to stop the fire.

1.11. 11. The last thing the house said was, "Today is August 5, 2026, today is August 5, 2026, today is...".

1.12. 12. I think that Bradbury is trying to show that technology shouldn't get so advanced that you don't even have to do anything.

1.13. The post-apocalyptic setting give you the idea that no one is alive.

2. Plot Summary

2.1. The story takes place when everyone is killed by a nuclear war but the house doesn't realize it. It continues to do its daily chores and duties. It cleans up messes and gets things ready even though no one is present. Then disaster strikes and the house is on fire.

3. Quote: "In the living room the voice-clock sand, Tick-Tock, seven o'clock, time to get up, time to get up, seven o'clock! as if it were afraid that nobody would."

3.1. You can see in the way the house says this it might already have an idea that no where is there. It even says in the story it was afraid no one would get up.

4. Vocab

4.1. silhouette: an image of a person, animal, or an object or scene represented as a solid shape of a single color

4.2. paranoia: a mental condition characterized by delusions

4.3. regiment: a permanent unit of an army typically commanded by a colonel and divided into several companies, squadrons, or batteries and often into two battalions

4.4. incinerator: an apparatus for burning waste material

4.5. capillaries: any of the fine branching blood vessels that form a network between the arterioles and venules

4.6. oblivious: not aware of or not concerned about what is happening around one

4.7. sublime: of such excellence, grandeur, or beauty as to inspire great admiration or awe

4.8. psychopathic:a person suffering from chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behavior