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Unnamed Man
The bright blue electrical monster that attacks the group of American men and kills the unnamed man. Bradbury leaves it ambiguous as to if the monster is real—yet another terrifying aspect of the foreign, “cartoonish nightmare” of a planet—or if the monster is purely a metaphor for a massive electrical storm. Bradbury describes the monster as being half a mile wide and mile tall. It has a thousand electric legs, which fall out of its body and electrocute anything in their path. While the lieutenant, Simmons, and Pickard escape the monster unscathed by lying down in the mud (the monster is so high up, it doesn’t notice things on the ground), the other man gets scared and runs at the last moment. The monster kills him instantly with a dozen lightning bolts.
The Monster Quotes in The Long Rain
The The Long Rain quotes below are all either spoken by The Monster or refer to The Monster. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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The Long Rain Quotes
They walked over to the body, thinking that perhaps they could still save the man’s life. They couldn’t believe that there wasn’t some way to help the man. It was the natural act of men who have not accepted death until they have touched it and turned it over and made plans to bury it or leave it there for the jungle to bury in an hour of quick growth.
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The unnamed man has just been killed by an electrical monster’s formidable lightning bolts, leaving only the lieutenant, Simmons, and Pickard remaining in the group. The unnamed man is clearly no match for the giant electrical monster (which may in fact be an extended metaphor for an electrical storm), and yet the lieutenant and his comrades believe “that perhaps they could still save the man’s life.” This deep sense of denial shows that humans think of themselves as being powerful and even invincible. In reality, nature (represented by the monster) is overwhelmingly the more powerful force, killing the unnamed man Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam of
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The Monster Character Timeline in The Long Rain
The timeline below shows where the character The Monster appears in The Long Rain. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
The Long Rain
Suddenly, a massive roar echoes in the distance, and a monster emerges through the rain. The monster has a thousand legs, each made of electric blue...
(full context)
The lieutenant instructs his comrades to lie flat in the mud, noticing that the monster “hits the highest points” in the jungle. Faces buried in the soggy soil, the men...
(full context)
...orders the other men (later revealed as Simmons and Pickard) to stay put until the monster departs. When the coast is clear, the shaken-up comrades locate the unnamed man, believing that...
(full context)
