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The Voice Reading Poetry
This is the family that lived in the house before the nuclear explosion (they are dead before the story begins but referenced throughout). The white silhouettes of the McClellan father, mother, son, and daughter appear on the side of the house as a reminder of happier times. Readers never meet the McClellans, but they learn more about them based on how the house caters to their needs. For example, the fact that the house serves a lot of hearty, standard American foods (such as pancakes, bacon, eggs, and toast) suggests that the McClellans’ were, at least in some ways, a typical middle or upper class family. The family also had artistic preferences regarded as cultivated or fine by contemporary standards. For instance, Mrs. McClellan used to listen to poetry on a regular basis, as is evidenced by the scene with the voice reading poetry in the study. Additionally, the family owned paintings by Picasso and Matisse, which burn during the fire. By presenting the family as ordinary yet refined, Bradbury suggests that what happens in the McClellan home is not unique; no one is safe from the perils of technology.
The McClellan Family Quotes in There Will Come Soft Rains
The There Will Come Soft Rains quotes below are all either spoken by The McClellan Family or refer to The McClellan Family. 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 dog ran upstairs, hysterically yelping to each door, at last realizing, as the house realized, that only silence was here.
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In the tenderest passage of the story, the family dog searches for its owners. This passage reveals that both the house and the dog realize that the family is absent. However, they react in very different ways. Up until now, the house has been carrying on as though nothing were different about the day. By contrast, the dog is distraught. Seeing these two companions of the McClellan family side by side helps the reader juxtapose the sincerity of the dog’s grief with the absurdity of the house’s machinations. Bradbury is criticizing society for surrounding itself with technology instead of investing 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 volupt
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
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The voice reading poetry speaks these lines aloud from the ceiling of the study. Earlier in the scene, it asks Mrs. McClellan which poem she would like to hear, suggesting that it is a nightly ritual for her to listen to poetry. The selection the voice makes is by Sara Teasdale. It begins by describing a simple scene from nature. Many of the treasures that an ordinary Spring day brings gather together, including soft rains, the smell of the ground, singing frogs, bright plum trees, and fire-colored robins each carrying a tune. The reader’s enjoyment of this idyllic image is 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 voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dict
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The McClellan Family Character Timeline in There Will Come Soft Rains
The timeline below shows where the character The McClellan Family 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
...the house, whose white paint is completely charred except in “five places”: the silhouettes of a man mowing, a woman gardening, and a boy and girl tossing a ball “which never came down.”
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At 9:15, a voice from the study ceiling asks Mrs. McClellan which poem she would like to hear. When the voice receives no response, it picks...
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