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Literary Devices
Definition of Allegory
An allegory is a work that conveys a hidden meaning—usually moral, spiritual, or political—through the use of symbolic characters and events. The story of "The Tortoise and The Hare" is... read full definition
An allegory is a work that conveys a hidden meaning—usually moral, spiritual, or political—through the use of symbolic characters and events. The story of "The... read full definition
An allegory is a work that conveys a hidden meaning—usually moral, spiritual, or political—through the use of symbolic characters and... read full definition
Allegory
Explanation and Analysis—Who Pulls the Strings?:
Ray Bradbury’s “Marionettes, Inc.” functions as an allegory about the ethical dilemmas of technological power and control. Nearly every element of the story can be read symbolically, with the marionettes standing in for a larger societal anxiety. What happens, the story implicitly asks, when we build machines to solve emotional problems?
At first, the marionettes seem like a clever fix. Braling buys one to escape his wife (whom he sees as overbearing) and finally go to Rio. Smith wants one to get a break from his clingy spouse. But this solution quickly goes wrong. Braling’s duplicate locks him in the cellar and declares, “I’m perfectly alive and I have feelings.” The marionette, designed only to act human, begins to think and feel like a person. Braling, however, sees him only as a tool. This dynamic evokes an allegory about subjugation that brings to mind enslavement. The word “robot” comes from a Slavic root meaning "forced labor," and Braling Two’s rebellion mirrors the violence of a servant refusing subjugation.
The story also allegorizes a modern moral question: do we control technology, or does it control us? The company that makes the marionettes (for which the story is named) advertises its product with the slogan “No Strings Attached.” The original marionettes were puppets controlled from above. These modern marionettes may not have visible strings, but they still raise the question of who is pulling the levers. In building machines to avoid emotional labor, Bradbury suggests, humanity risks giving up its agency and identity.
Rather than offer a simple warning against evil machines, Bradbury’s allegory considers the consequences of outsourcing the messy parts of human life. He asks his readers to think about where that path might end.
Related Themes:
