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Characters
The house—an artificially intelligent, automated machine—is the main character of the story. Despite being inhuman, it has a complex personality. The house’s character traits are embodied by the different machines inside it (some of which feature so prominently that they can be considered characters in their own right, such as the clock, the robot mice, and the voice reading poetry). At first the house demonstrates more docile features of its personality. It seems affectionate, since it misses the family. It also appears to be industrious when it goes through the motions of getting everyone ready. From the description of how the house shoos away animals, the reader even gets the sense that the house is prudish. When the dog appears, the reader sees a new, darker side of the house. It handles the dog brusquely and seems more concerned with cleaning the mud it tracks in than with tending to the dog’s needs. When the dog dies, the house callously sweeps its remains into an incinerator. From the way voices direct the family’s every step, the reader begins to suspect that the house has some kind of obsession with control and order. When a tree branch finally falls on the house, causing a fire, the house frantically tries to ward it off, throwing all of its systems into overdrive to fight the fire to no avail. The house demonstrates so many of the worst traits that technology brings out in people, becoming a moral warning against blindly following the next new tech craze. Its death at the hands of nature is meant to remind the reader that nature is permanent, while technology is temporary.
The House Quotes in There Will Come Soft Rains
The There Will Come Soft Rains quotes below are all either spoken by The House or refer to The House. 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
In the living room the voice-clock sang, Tick-tock, seven o’clock, time to get up, time to get up, seven o’clock! as if it were afraid that nobody would. The morning house lay empty. The clock ticked on, repeating and repeating its sounds into the emptiness. Seven-nine, breakfast time, seven-nine!
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This is the opening passage of the short story, which begins by focusing on the clock’s point of view. It rings at 7 am, as it likely does every morning. However, the singsong alarm ringing through an empty house casts a shadow over the story’s opening. The reader can tell that something or someone is missing from the story because Bradbury notes, “The morning house lay empty.” This whole passage puts technology and control at the center of the narrative. Later, the clock will try to orchestrate everything that happens in the story. At first, the reader does not associate 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. O
The five spots of paint—the man, the woman, the children, the ball—remained. The rest was a thin charcoaled layer.
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The five spots of paint are the parts of the house that were protected when an atomic bomb exploded in the city. The McClellan family was enjoying an afternoon outside and received the full impact of the bomb, shielding the paint behind them. The five spots highlight that death can be instantaneous. Each person was destroyed in a moment. The brevity of the passage emphasizes how small human life is in comparison to the wider world. The remains of humanity can be neatly summarized in a few words. This family may have had large hopes and dreams, but they have 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
The front door recognized the dog voice and opened. The dog, once huge and fleshy, but now gone to bone and covered with sores, moved in and through the house, tracking mud. Behind it whirred angry mice, angry at having to pick up mud, angry at inconvenience.
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Because the house permits the dog to enter, the reader infers that this was a family pet. The animal was once large and healthy but now, due to radiation and hunger, it has been reduced to a shell of its former self. The dog’s return gives the house an opportunity in the story to demonstrate its character. In a famous, similar scene in The Odyssey, a dog welcomes a weary traveler back to his home. Will the house be like the famous dog, Argos, who faithfully welcomed its owner, Odysseus, upon his return after twenty years at sea? The behavior 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
There was the sound like a great matted yellow hive of bees within a dark bellows, the lazy bumble of a purring lion. And there was the patter of okapi feet and the murmur of a fresh jungle rain, like other hoofs, falling upon the summer-starched grass.
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This quotation comes from a description of the children’s hour, in which mechanical animals move in a digital fresco on the walls of the children’s nursery. The scene is designed to create an artificial analogue to outdoor entertainment. This way, the children can be comfortable and protected while still enjoying the wonders of nature. In this passage, even though technology is trying to improve nature, it cannot help but imitate it quite closely. The rich sounds of the beehive, purring lion, patter of okapi feet, and murmur of fresh rain create intense auditory imagery within the text. Together they emphasize Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. A
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
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
Dawn showed faintly in the east. Among the ruins, one wall stood alone. Within the wall, a last voice said, over and over again and again, even as the sun rose to shine upon the heaped rubble and steam: “Today is August 5, 2026, today is August 5, 2026, today is…”
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These are the very last words of Bradbury’s short story, in which the sun rises over a house reduced to rubble. One wall is standing, and within it the voice that controls the clock declares that a new day is dawning. The image calls to mind the Wailing Wall of Jerusalem. This historic site is the only part of the Jewish temple that was left standing when Romans sacked the city. It is called the Wailing Wall because people go there to pray and lament the fall of Jerusalem. The wall of this short story is similar in that 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
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The House Character Timeline in There Will Come Soft Rains
The timeline below shows where the character The House appears in There Will Come Soft Rains. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
There Will Come Soft Rains
...anniversary, and that certain bills are due. This information is stored on memory tapes in the house ’s walls.
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The house cleans up breakfast, scraping the uneaten food into a “metal throat” garbage disposal that flushes...
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The sun comes out at 10:00. The house is the only building left standing amidst “rubble and ashes,” and the city emits a...
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At 10:15, the sprinklers turn on. The water runs down the west side of the house , whose white paint is completely charred except in “five places”: the silhouettes of a...
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Until today, the house has asked, “What’s the password?” to every fox or cat that passed its door and...
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At noon, a dog whines at the front door. The house door recognizes the dog and allows it inside. The dog was “once huge and fleshy,...
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The dog runs up the stairs “hysterically yelping” until it realizes, “as the house realized,” that no one is home. The dog treks back to the kitchen and paws...
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At 2:35, the house spreads out bridge tables on the patio. Playing cards, martinis, and egg-salad sandwiches materialize as...
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...move “like magic tricks” and a hearth fire starts in the study. Opposite the fire, the house lights a cigar that is “smoking, waiting.” At 9:00, hidden machinery warms the beds because...
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The house begins to “die” at 10:00. The wind knocks a tree branch through a kitchen window....
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The house attempts “to save itself” by shutting its doors and containing the fire. The robot mice...
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...the sight of a dead snake.” But the fire is “clever.” It has wrapped around the house and ignites the tank in the “attic brain” filled with the green chemical. The “attic...
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The fire delves deeper into the house . It “felt the clothes” in the closets. The pain of the house increases. It...
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The many voices of the house continue to cry out until the fire consumes them one by one. One plays music,...
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