“THERE WILL COME SOFT RAINS”



All answer will be on your own paper!

GUIDED-READING QUESTIONS.

1. Describe the house. Who lives there? How do you know?

2. What is the weather like on August 4, 2026? What does the house recommend?

3. Which conveniences in this passage already exist in today’s society?

4. What is unusual about the way the house speaks? What is significant about its use of language?

5. What has happened to the other houses in the city?

6. What record is left of the family? How was the record created?

7. When you first see the dog, how is he described? What does that tell you?

8. What is ironic about the lifelike images in the nursery?

9. What effect has the death of the family had on the house? What effect do you think the end of humankind has had on the world?

10. What part of the house does the fire attack? What consequence will this attack have for the house?

11. People have often claimed that at death a person’s life “flashes before his or her eyes.” In what way is the death of the house similar to the death of a person?

POST-READING QUESTIONS.

Recall

1. Who is talking in the house on the morning of August 4, 2026? In what ways does the house prepare for people who do not appear?

2. What happens just after nine o'clock in the evening? Which poem does the house select? Why do you think it chose that poem?

3. What happens at ten o'clock? How does the house react?

Interpret

4. What is ominous about the house at the beginning of the story?

5. Why is the action just after nine o'clock somewhat more personal than the others of the day? How does the house choose the poem? Why is it an appropriate poem for the situation?

6. Describe the scene of the destruction of the house. How is the house left in the end? How does the action of the house in the last line compare to its action in the first line?

Analyze

7. Based on Bradbury's descriptions in the story, how do you think the city and its inhabitants were destroyed?

Synthesize

8. Why do you think Bradbury waited until paragraph 10 to explain what had happened to the city? Why do you think he waited to show what had happened to the family?

Evaluate

9. What makes the actions of the house senseless? Might it be dangerous to put too much of our lives in the hands of machines? Why, or why not?

Extend

10. What comment is Bradbury making about the essential stupidity of machines? Of mankind? Contrast this with Sara Teasdale's view of nature in her poem "There Will Come Soft Rains."

LITERARY DEVICES

Identify each as personification (p), simile (s), imagery (i), metaphor (m). Some can be more than one! If there is more than one device, be sure to tell which part is which.

1. In the kitchen the breakfast stove gave a hissing sigh (1)

2. At eight thirty the eggs were shriveled and the toast was like stone. (1)

3. …hot water whirled them down a metal throat which digested and flushed them away to the distant sea. (1)

4. The garden sprinklers whirled up golden founts filling the soft morning air with scatterings of brightness. (1)

5. It quivered at each sound, the house did. (1)

6. The dog frothed at the mouth, lying at the door, sniffing, its eyes turned to fire. It ran wildly in circles, biting at its tail, spun in a frenzy and died. (1)

7. At four o’clock the tables folded like great butterflies… (1)

8. There was the sound like a great matted yellow hive of bees within dark bellows, the lazy bumble of a purring lion. (2)

9. The dinner dishes manipulated like magic tricks… (1)

10. At ten o’clock, the house began to die. (1)

11. Cleaning solvent, bottled, shattered over the stove. The room was ablaze in an instant! (1)

12. Cleaning solvent spread on the linoleum, licking, eating under the kitchen door, while the voices took it up in chorus: “Fire, fire, fire!” (1)

13. The fire crackled up the stairs. It fed upon Picassos and Matisses in the upper halls, like delacacies, baking off the oily flesh, tenderly crisping the canvases into black shavings. (2)

14. The fire now lay in the beds, stood in the windows, changed the colors of drapes! (1)

15. The fire backed off, as even an elephant must do at the sight of a dead snake. (2)

16. Now there were twenty snakes whipping over the floor, killing the fire with a clear cold venom of green froth. (2)

17. The house shuddered, oak bone on bone, its bared skeleton cringing from the hear, its wire, its nerves revealed as if a surgeon had torn the skin off to let the red veins and capillaries quiver in the scalded air. (3)

18. …a thousand things happened, like a clock shop when each clock strikes the hour insanely before or after the other. (1)

19. Deep freeze, arm chair, film tapes, circuits, beds, and all like skeletons thrown in a cluttered mound deep under. (1)

20. Find another one…that I didn’t list here. Write the sentence and identify the devices used.

LITERARY ELEMENTS.

Theme. What do you think the theme of Sara Teasdale's poem is? Why do you think Bradbury chose to use the name of this poem for the title of his story as well as to incorporate the poem into the story? How are the themes of the poem and the story similar?

Personification. What is special about this house that makes it different from other houses? What specific lines, especially in the fire scene, describe the house in human terms? What is ironic about the survival of the house?

CREATIVITY

Pick the scene that you found the most descriptive. To the best of your artistic ability, draw that scene. Be sure to use the whole paper and include the quote/lines that inspired your drawing.

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