The Illustrated Man

“It seemed that, at a distance, for the past month, he had heard lions roaring, and smelled their strong odor seeping as far away as his study door. But, being busy, he had paid it no attention.”

This is a typical example of Bradbury-ian foreshadowing. Like Mrs. Morris in “Zero Hour,” George’s faults as a parent go beyond his inability to communicate with his children. He even ignores what his senses tell him is true: The power of the Veldt is stretching far beyond the confines of the playroom.

“‘That isn’t important,’ said Hollis. And it was not. It was gone. When life is over it is like a flicker of bright film, an instant on the screen, all of its prejudices and passions condensed and illumined for an instant on space, and before you could cry out, ‘There was a happy day, there a bad one, there an evil face, there a good one,’ the film burned to a cinder, the screen went dark.”

Bradbury’s characters often consider the ephemerality or even pointlessness of life in the face of death. He does not shy away from this sort of existential dread.

“Your Martian soil has lain fallow for numberless centuries; there’s room for everyone; it’s good soil—I’ve seen your fields from above. We’ll come and work it for you. Yes, we’ll even do that. […] But we’ll come here and we’ll work for you and do the things you did for us—clean your houses, cook your meals, shine your shoes, and humble ourselves in the sight of God for the things we have done over the centuries to ourselves, to others, to you.”

After a clear acknowledgement of responsibility and sincere apology for the past actions of the people from Earth, the white emissary offers to be slaves for the black colonist on Mars. While this would be, perhaps, the most equal option, it would not be just, as the original institution of slavery was not.

“None complained, and this was unusual. Always before they complained; of rain, of heat, of time, of cold, of distance.”

This line makes it clear that the atomic war has changed the young Americans’ perspective. Mundane things that might have been a big deal before are less so now, but nothing has changed for Hernando. His world is just as he had known it before.

“‘I’ve had enough of your highhandedness,’ replied Martin. ‘Leave these people alone. They’ve got something good and decent, and you come and foul up the nest and sneer at it. Well, I’ve talked to them too. I’ve gone through the city and seen their faces, and they’ve got something you’ll never have—a little simple faith, and they’ll move mountains with it. […] Take your filth somewhere else and foul up other nests with your doubt and your—scientific method!’”

Here, logic is countered not by imagination—as is typical for Bradbury—but by faith. Captain Hart refuses to believe in what he cannot see. Like Hitchcock in “No Particular Night or Morning,” we begin to suspect that no amount of proof will suffice for him, that faith is simply antithetical to his nature. Martin recognizes the corrosive effects of his willful blindness.

“‘You’re very tired,’ he said. ‘You’ve traveled a long way and you belong to a tired people who’ve been without faith a long time, and you want to believe so much now that you’re interfering with yourself. You’ll only make it harder if you kill. You’ll never find him that way.’”

Ironically, Hart’s insistence on pursuing the Man only pulls him further away. Hart cannot fathom that what he needs is right in front of him. As he later tells Martin, in the simplest terms possible: “I don’t understand” (76).

“The body was twisted steel, wrapped in burned leather. It looked like a wax dummy that had been thrown into an incinerator and pulled out after the wax had sunk to the charcoal skeleton. Only the teeth were white, and they shone like a strange white bracelet dropped half through a clenched black fist.”

Bradbury occasionally includes graphic violence in his stories. The horror genre and Bradbury himself were often criticized for this, as Bradbury hints at when the Illustrated Man mentions he cannot hold down a job due to the violent images in his tattoos (4).

“When he went off into space ten years ago, I said to myself, ‘He’s dead.’ Or as good as dead. So think of him dead. And when he comes back, three or four times a year, it’s not him at all, it’s only a pleasant little memory or a dream. […] Other times I can’t help myself. I bake pies and treat him as if he were alive, and then it hurts. No, it’s better to think he hasn’t been here for ten years and I’ll never see him again. It doesn’t hurt as much.”

Lilly chooses to live in a strange fantasy world of memory, a kind of Schrödinger’s Cat scenario where her husband is dead until exactly the moment it is clear he’s alive. Her insistence on living in the moment to avoid the pain of the alternative is reminiscent of Hitchcock’s suggestion that he dies and wakes up again every day.

“‘We haven’t been too bad, have we?’

The couple of “The Last Night” was good to each other but disconnected to the evils of world around them. They were so caught up in their domestic sphere that they made no effort to better the world around them. Their sin—and perhaps the defining sin of mankind—was not one of intention but one of omission.

“Bats, needles, dreams, men dying for no reason. I’d call it witchcraft in another day. But this is the year 2120, Smith. We’re rational men. This all can’t be happening.”

This is another example of an overly rational character relying on logic to convince himself of what he can see, with his own eyes, to be true. Smith is certain of what he is seeing—the workings of literary greats as they wage war on reality—but his captain is dismissive.

“They won’t be prepared for us, at least. They haven’t the imagination. Those clean young rocket men with their antiseptic bloomers and fish-bowl helmets, with their new religion.”

Interestingly, Poe compares adherence to scientific dogma as a religion of its own. For Bradbury, everything exists on a spectrum of faith: What seems like magic in today’s world may be explained by science in the future, and what is believed to be stark scientific fact may be refined or even disproven in the years to come.

“I don’t believe in anything I can’t see or hear or touch. I can’t see Earth, so why should I believe in it? It’s safer this way, not to believe.”

Bradbury suggests that while being unwilling to take a leap of faith may seem logical, it can sometimes be an act of cowardice—or, at least, misplaced self-preservation.

“I’m practical. If Earth isn’t here for me to walk on, you want me to walk on a memory? That hurts. Memories, as my father once said, are porcupines. To hell with them! Stay away from them. They make you unhappy.”

Like the children in “The Veldt,” Hitchcock resists feelings that make him uncomfortable or unhappy, unaware that these are the very elements that make us human.

“We don’t like this world of 2155. We want to run away from his work at the bomb factory, I from my position with disease-culture units. Perhaps there is a chance for us to escape, to run for centuries into a wild country of years where they will never find and bring us back to burn our books, censor our thoughts, scald our minds with fear, march us, scream at us with radios …”

This provides a succinct summary of the most nightmarish dystopian future for Bradbury: atomic and biological warfare, censorship, and authoritarian control of media.

“If you’d had any sense and done things intelligently, we’d have been friends. I’d have been glad to do you these little hypnotic favors. After all, they’re no trouble for me to conjure up. Fun, really. But you’ve botched it. You wanted me all to yourself. You were afraid the others would take me away from you. Oh, how mistaken you were. I have enough power to keep them all happy. You could have shared me, like a community kitchen. I’d have felt quite like a god among children, being kind, doing favors, in return for which you might bring me little gifts, special tidbits of food.”

Like the unnamed messiah in “The Man,” Leonard was ready to bring comfort and healing to the men quarantined on Mars. His willingness to help everyone in their turn makes Saul’s selfishness even clearer—and Leonard’s eventual death even more tragic.

“No, I don’t believe Earthmen can actually do that—no. But they have a background, understand, Assignor, of generations of children reading just such fiction, absorbing it. They have nothing but a literature of invasions successfully thwarted. Can you say the same for Martian literature?”

In an ironic twist, it is the Martian Ettil who understands the power of propaganda as a morale booster. Martian honesty apparently makes them bad at motivating their soldiers for combat.

“The odors of perfume were fanned out on the summer air by the whirling vents of the grottoes where the women hid like undersea creatures, under electric cones, their hair curled into wild whorls and peaks, their eyes shrewd and glassy, animal and sly, their mouths painted a neon red. Fans were whirring, the perfumed wind issuing upon the stillness, moving among green trees, creeping among the amazed Martians.”

1950s women in dryers at the hair salon are described like an alien species. Their alluring perfume and “electric cones” liken them to deep-sea predators like anglerfish, setting a trap for their prey.

“We'll shame everyone into wearing shoes. Then we sell them the polish!”

This is an oft-quoted line of R.R. Plank, which illustrates the evils of advertising culture. Ettil had explained that Martians do not wear shoes, but that hardly matters to Plank. Plank is excited about the buying potential of the Martians.

“It may be splitting hairs, but I think it highly ethical. After all, what my wife wants most of all is me. This marionette is me to the hairiest detail. I’ve been home all evening. I shall be home with her for the next month.”

Braling had previously said that putting sleeping powder in his wife’s coffee would be unethical, but he sees no problem with deceiving her on a much deeper level. Like Smith, he arrogantly assumes that his wife wants nothing more than his company. His suggestion that he has been home all evening also foreshadows Braling Two replacing him completely. Already, the lines between them have begun to blur.

“The flaps of his sliced skin were pinned to the table while hands shifted parts of his body like a quick and curious player of chess, using the red pawns and the red pieces.”

Multiple references to chess in “The City” underline the relentless logic of the city’s actions—it is always one move ahead of the astronaut visitors. Using chess prowess as an indication of alien intelligence is a favored device in science fiction.

“The adult civilization passed and repassed the busy youngsters, jealous of the fierce energy of the wild tots, tolerantly amused at their flourishings, longing to join in themselves.”

Here, as elsewhere in Bradbury’s stories, an artificial barrier exists between the lives of adults and children. If one of these adults was close enough to their child to take part in their games, like Fiorello Bodoni in “The Rocket,” the disaster may have been averted.

“Strange children, did they ever forget or forgive the whippings and the harsh, strict words of command? She wondered. How can you ever forget or forgive those over and above you, those tall and silly dictators?”

Like the children in “The Veldt,” Mink pushes back against what she perceives as the tyrannical rule of her parents, unaware that the rules they set are for the children’s own good. Mrs. Morris seems kind and gentle enough with Mink; perhaps she is recalling her own treatment as a child and is thus empathizing with her daughter’s point of view.

“[…] Let them be content with being poor. Turn their eyes down to their hands and to your junk yard, not up to the stars.”

The grumpy old man Bramante suggests that to be a truly responsible parent is to deny children dreams that might prove hurtful. As Hitchcock in “No Particular Night” and Lilly in “The Rocket Man” learned, this approach might give the illusion of safety and happiness, but it actually leads to a sad and disordered life.