Critical appreciation essay on unseen dystopian extract
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Course
Comparative and contextual study (H472)
Institution
OCR
Exemplar critical appreciation essay on an unseen extract from a dystopian text - contains references to Huxley's 'Brave New World' and valuable context - great example of how to tackle unseen essay questions - grade A
Write a critical appreciation of this passage, relating your discussion to your reading
of dystopian literature
(There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury, 1950)
Often the driving force of dystopian literature is the oppressive control of a powerful
oligarchy. This is not seen, however, in the extract from ‘There Will Come Soft Rains’, as
Ray Bradbury seems to focus on technology, desolation and an overarching sense of
paranoia, with which to present the troubling nature of his ‘bad place’.
Similar to in Aldous Huxley's ‘Brave New World’, time forms an integral part of Bradbury's
piece, but, whilst also speculating the increase of technological efficiency, it mainly aids in
the continuation of an atmospheric paranoia. The ‘voice-clock’ announces the ‘time’
throughout the passage, often repeating the numbers multiple times, before finishing with an
exclamation mark, articulating a sense of panic or stress. The continual ascension from the
first ‘seven o’clock’ to ‘ten-fifteen’ establishes a steady building of tension with the passing of
time, reminiscent of the ticking of a time-bomb, which mirrors the evidential nuclear
explosion which has occurred, leaving the ‘city’ with a ‘radioactive glow’. As this was written
in 1950, it is probable that the author was inspired by the recent nuclear disaster in
Hiroshima in 1945, which produced an unprecedented amount of suffering and destruction.
As well as this, the ongoing fear of nuclear war between the USA and Russia was felt by the
majority of the world at this time, enabling Bradbury to evoke great distress in his
contemporaneous readers by enhancing their own paranoia of nuclear warfare. Not only this,
Bradbury includes the simile: ‘as if it were afraid nobody would’, conveying the extremity of
the sense of anxiety by showing that even an inanimate object seems ‘afraid’. The final
section of the passage is littered with evidence of the house’s ‘mechanical paranoia’, through
the archetypal question of unease: ‘who goes there?’ which it seems to ask ‘only foxes’ ‘cats’
and ‘birds’, illustrating the intensity and perhaps irrationality of its ‘preoccupation’. This, along
with the fact that ‘it quivered at each sound, the house did’ – the word ‘quivered’ highlighted
by the inversion of the sentence – emphasises a feeling of an unavoidable malevolent
arrival, whilst also conveying the house as terrified of the living, underlining the absence of
humankind.
This deficiency of life is clearly displayed through the theme of desolation that is sustained
by Bradbury. The ‘emptiness’ of the house is repeatedly described and insinuated by a lack
of movement and sound, as ‘no doors slammed’ and ‘no carpets took the soft tread of rubber
heels’, whilst the ‘rain’ ‘echo[ed]’, all of which create the feeling of a great void in the setting.
A series of simple, blunt sentences depicting the ‘rubble and ashes’ which surround ‘the one
house left standing’ ‘for miles’ demonstrate complete devastation and isolation, followed by a
drastic change in tone. Bradbury immediately transitions into juxtaposing language, such as,
‘golden founts’ in ‘the soft morning air’ and ‘scatterings of brightness’, describing 'the
silhouette in paint of a man mowing a lawn’ and ‘a woman bent to pick flowers’ ‘as in a
photograph’. The stark contrast of this idyllic scene from the reality that has just been
revealed, which the reader knows to be true, creates an impression of falseness and
deception and emphasises the eeriness of the setting which is so devoid of humanity. The
final sentence of the passage is cluttered with alliteration and sibilance, with pairs of
repeated ‘g’ ‘r’ and ‘s’ sounds, highlighting the overwhelming nature of this desolation,
amidst a metaphor, as the author calls humans ‘gods’, giving them extreme importance and
insinuating that there is nothing without humanity, perhaps acting as a warning of the
dangers of nuclear power. The mention of ‘God’ and the constant display of the utter
devastation of the surroundings is also utilised by Cormac McCarthy in ‘The Road’, which
similarly seems to caution the reader on the results of the degeneration of mankind.
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