The rocket symbolizes Harry Bittering’s determination to return to Earth and, more broadly, the settlers’ former lives there. Harry, who is particularly disturbed by the severing of ties to Earth after the nuclear war on the planet, is particularly attached to the idea of building a new rocket that will return them to Earth. The presence of daily rockets before the war had been a great comfort: “As long as the rockets had spun a silver web across space, he had been able to accept Mars. For he had always told himself: Tomorrow, if I want, I can buy a ticket and go back to Earth.” Harry begins to construct a rocket of his own, even as this plan is gently mocked by his friends and viewed with concern by his family. Gradually, however, “In the flow of days and weeks, the rocket receded and dwindled. The old fever was gone.” Eventually, Harry’s abandonment of the rocket comes to symbolize his abandonment of the dream of ever getting back to Earth. When he leaves the “flimsy rocket frame rusting in an empty shop,” he leaves behind him the final vestiges of a connection to Earth, and instead accepts that he is becoming, however strangely and gradually, a Martian.
Rocket Symbol Timeline in Dark They Were, and Golden Eyed
