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
“October 2002: The Shore”
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
“October 2002: The Shore” Summary
Further waves of settlers leave Earth for Mars, though these settlers are different from the Lonely Ones and the Locusts. The next wave of settlers are exclusively Americans; the rest of the world is mired “in war or the thoughts of war” (115). This second wave is comprised of people from poorer economic circumstances, those from “the cabbage tenements and subways” (115) who find peace amidst the sedentary and silent first wave of settlers after “long years crushed in tubs, tins, and boxes in New York” (115).
“October 2002: The Shore” Analysis
Bradbury uses a poetic conceit, casting Mars as a shore and the successive arrivals of settlers as waves breaking upon the shore. While their varied pasts are emphasized, they are all Americans, suggesting an exceptionalism which is an undercurrent of colonialism. Other countries long to join the Americans but can only watch the “Roman candles” (115) of the rockets leave them behind. Bradbury’s allusion to the Romans—the self-centered drivers of the imperialist engine—makes the rest of the world’s stance on the American colonization of Mars uncertain.
Bradbury suggests that the rest of the world should have been invited, that “other ideas” (115) should have been brought to Mars, as this would have only strengthened the colonies.
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