August 2026 Analysis

August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains

By, Ray Bradbury

"And not one will know of the war and not one will care when it is done"

This quote from the poem "There Will Come Soft Rains"  sums up a great deal of  the message  Ray Bradbury  is trying to express to reader through his short story. The story is centered around a fully automated house which continues to operate even after its human inhabitants have been killed by a nuclear explosion. Strikingly enough it is the only house left standing  amongst all the rumble and destruction left from the bomb. The  house in itself serves as a great representation of  the message the quote conveys. My interpretation of the message is that when you have  cause escalating destruction due to war, who will be left to even note who was the most destructive in the end when everybody has been decimated by the destruction. I say the house is a great representation of this because it is one of the only  intact reminders of  humanity and the family which once lived there. For example the house still prepares breakfast, cleans, prepares things for the family, and guards the house as if the family is coming back with words such as "Who goes there?Whats the password?". 

    One of the most depressing aspects of the situation is that the home in the end is just another programmed piece of technology which cannot truly miss the family or grasp the true extent of all that was lost in the nuclear explosion.  There is also something inherently cold, mechanical, and  unfeeling about the house. Even if its inhabitants are dead or the dog dies in a frenzy on the kitchen floor the house still carries on and goes through the motions of what it was programmed to do. Even after it has been almost completely destroyed, its daily alerts still ring eerily on  saying, "Today is August 5, 2026". The immediate reaction I had when I  repeatedly read the house's date and time alerts was "who cares". The people who could appreciate such a reminder are gone. This is exactly the kind of reaction I feel Ray Bradbury wanted to get from the reader. A reaction in which they come to realize, what was the point of creating all this technology to solve and make easier all of these simple life tasks and problems such as cleaning or keeping the kids entertained, when you can't develop a solution or compromise to end the biggest threat of all-the war.