125 pages • 4 hours read
Ray BradburyThe Martian Chronicles
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1950A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Summary
“January 1999: Rocket Summer”
“February 1999: Ylla”
“August 1999: The Summer Night”
“August 1999: The Earth Men”
“March 2000: The Taxpayer”
“April 2000: The Third Expedition”
“June 2001: —And the Moon Be Still as Bright”
“August 2001: The Settlers”
“December 2001: The Green Morning”
“February 2002: The Locusts”
“August 2002: Night Meeting”
“October 2002: The Shore”
“February 2003: Interim”
“April 2003: The Musicians”
“June 2003: Way in the Middle Air”
“2004-2005: The Naming of Names”
“April 2005: Usher II”
“August 2005: The Old Ones”
“September 2005: The Martian”
“November 2005: The Luggage Store”
“November 2005: The Off Season”
“November 2005: The Watchers”
“December 2005: The Silent Towns”
“April 2026: The Long Years”
“August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains”
“October 2026: The Million-Year Picnic”
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
“February 2003: Interim”Chapter Summaries & Analyses
“February 2003: Interim” Summary
More rockets arrive on Mars, bringing building materials from Earth, including “fifteen thousand lumber feet of Oregon pine” and “seventy-nine thousand feet of California redwood” (116). The supplies are used to construct churches, where the same hymns from Earth are sung on Sunday nights, or domiciles where novelists and poets can work. The towns are so like those on Earth that it appears as though “a whirlwind twister of Oz-like proportions” (116) had transported entire towns out of Iowa.
“February 2003: Interim” Analysis
Piety and the arts have arrived, “civilized” activities spread across Mars. The towns are emphatically American constructions, constructed with imported wood, suggesting an isolation from the natural environment. Their Americanness is emphasized, towns so similar they appear to have been dropped down by tornados—a quintessentially American image—but rather than giving them a familiar tone, they appear as unnatural growths. This insistence upon imported culture suggests a visual dichotomy within the lives of the people, who are not fitting in naturally with their environment, but are instead grafting their former way of life onto new surroundings. There is a hominess in the evocation of small-town America, but it also amplifies a sense of surreal isolation.
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