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The McClellan Family
Fire is portrayed as a clever and worthy adversary of the house. Even when snake-like tubes release fire repellant, the flames wrap around the outside of the house and attack the attic (the house’s brain). The fact that the fire ultimately conquers the house underscores the immense power of nature is in comparison with anything humans create.
Fire Quotes in There Will Come Soft Rains
The There Will Come Soft Rains quotes below are all either spoken by Fire or refer to Fire. 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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There Will Come Soft Rains Quotes
At ten o’clock the house began to die. The wind blew. A falling tree bough crashed through the kitchen window. Cleaning solvent, bottled, shattered over the stove. The room was ablaze in an instant!
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This passage marks the beginning of the end for the short story’s main character, the house. However, instead of saying the house burns or is destroyed, Bradbury uses the provocative phrase, “the house began to die.” Technology takes on lifelike characteristics throughout the tale, yet in its death the house demonstrates more visceral, instinctual tendencies than at any other point. The house is assailed by nature in a chain reaction—the wind blows a tree branch into the house, causing a fire. This moment in the story is a snapshot of the greater struggle at play between nature and technology. After 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 oc
The fire crackled up the stairs. It fed upon Picassos and Matisses in the upper halls, like delicacies, baking off the oily flesh, tenderly crisping the canvases into black shavings.
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This quotation reveals a surprising detail: the McClellan family owned paintings by Picasso and Matisse. Given that the reader has no other reason to think this house is out of the ordinary for its time, this detail comes as a surprise. However, the reason why these paintings are upstairs in the first place is less important than the dynamic at play between the paintings and the fire that consumes them. Picasso and Matisse are considered great contributors to human cultural heritage, yet in a moment a voracious fire can consume them. Nor is the fire indifferent to them. Rather, it 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 officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum volupta
But the fire was clever. It had sent flames outside the house, up through the attic to the pumps there. An explosion! The attic brain which directed the pumps was shattered into bronze shrapnel on the beams.
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Prior to this quotation, the robot mice had been firefighting using the green chemical stored in a tank in the attic. Here, the “clever” fire discovers a way to disable their defenses. Flames wrap around the house to the attic machinery. The combination of machinery, chemical, and fire results in a large explosion. Because the author refers to the attic as the “brain” of the house, readers glean that this attack is more than a minor setback. A human or animal with a “shattered” brain often dies or comes close to dying. In this quotation, nature outsmarts technology, crippling it 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 te
The house shuddered, oak bone on bone, its bared skeleton cringing from the heat, 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.
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This passage reinforces the gruesome parallels between the death of a person and the destruction of this house. Bradbury compares the house’s foundation to a human body that has been stripped of its skin, with exposed bones and blood vessels. Bradbury writes that the house shudders “oak bone on bone,” referring to the house’s inner structure. By pointing out the material, Bradbury reminds readers that the house—stripped of its gadgets—is yet another product of nature. Pain plays a major role in this quote. Throughout the story, the house has acted like both an animal and a human. The house has 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. U
In the last instant under the fire avalanche, other choruses, oblivious, could be heard announcing the time, playing music, cutting the lawn by remote-control mower, or setting an umbrella frantically out and in the slamming and opening front door, a thousand things happening, like a clock shop when each clock strikes the hour insanely before or after the other, a scene of maniac confusion, yet unity; singing, screaming, a few last cleaning mice darting bravely out to carry the horrid ashes away! And one voice, with sublime disregard for the situation, read poetry aloud in the fiery study, until all the film spools burned, until all the wires withered and the circuits cracked.
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Here is a perfect storm of chaos. The machines in the house have all turned on and are going about their day as though the fire were not consuming the entire building. The clock announces the time. The music plays. The front door opens and closes. Controlling to the end, the house refuses to stop what it’s doing even in the face of death. The robot mice in particular seem willfully ignorant. They clearly understand that the fire is disastrous or they would not have gone to such great lengths earlier in the story to put it out. However, now 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 officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut
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