Final Research Paper - Grade: 8.5 PDF

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"There Will Come Soft Rains”

A comparative analysis of Sara Teasdale’s poem, “There Will Come Soft Rains” and Ray Bradbury’s short story “There Will Come Soft Rains”

The advancement in science and technology has paved way to animosity between nature and humanity. This advancement has brought a drastic shift from ecocentrism to anthropocentrism. This essay aims to analyze the relationship between humanity and nature. For this purpose, Sara Teasdale’s poem, “There Will Come Soft Rains” and Ray Bradbury’s short story “There Will Come Soft Rains” will be analyzed in order to critically evaluate the role of humanity in exploiting and weakening the nature for the purpose of its own benefit. Moreover, a comparative analysis of both the poem and the short story will give us an insight into the different ways in which the writer and the poet projects nature and modern technology in their works. Similarly, both the works also foreshadow how the future would be if the war between science and nature goes on for a longer time. Sara Teasdale published her poem “There Will Come Soft Rains’’ in 1920 in her collection Flame and Shadow. Her poem, published right after the end of World War I, gives an insight into Teasdale’s concern with war and the destruction it brought throughout the whole world. In other words, the poem is reflective of her unique style of poetry and the strategies she uses to illustrate her anti-war sentiments. The poem comprises of heroic couplets and the poetess uses several poetic devices such as alliteration, internal rhyme and imagery in the couplets to make it more interesting and effective. In her poem Sara Teasdale draws a link between nature and humanity. She also highlights the role of humanity in bringing destruction to the world in the form of war. Written within the context of World War I, the poet highlights the destruction and violence that

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the human war brought with it. She addresses the drastic nature of modern technology which failed to bring peace in the world. Instead of bringing stability, Teasdale suggests that wars only bring destruction and nothing else. In her poem, it can be observed how human beings try to exploit nature in order to get benefit but end up destructing themselves. Nature takes its revenge when its order is deteriorated as illustrated from the poem. The poem “There Will Come Soft Rains” acts as a warning to mankind that if they will try to exploit the natural order through war, nature will react with more strength and the only destruction that will be caused which will lead to the death of humankind. Teasdale suggests that fighting wars is useless and futile. Even if the whole mankind is destroyed, natural world continues to survive with its full legacy. Nature always remains unaffected as evident from the initial lines of the poem: “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."

From the above mentioned lines, it becomes clear that the destruction of mankind is inevitable whereas nature will continue to live on undisturbed. She refers to natural entities of the world such as birds, trees and different weathers which will remain unaffected even if the whole mankind diminishes or gets destroyed due to their own deeds.

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The title of the poem “There Will Come Soft Rains” gives us an optimistic view regarding nature that even if humanity intends to exploit or destroy it, it cannot do so as nature has the ability to recover itself and remain unaffected. Moreover, the fire and destruction caused by human war will be wiped away by the ‘soft rains’ that will come and extinguish it. On the other hand, nature will continue to live on according to its previous pattern: “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;” The relationship between nature and humanity is also highlighted in the poem. Role of humanity in the poem is also significant. The poem suggests that human beings share a different relationship with nature. It is the very human activity that deteriorates the nature nut nature has the ability to dominate and recover. Teasdale criticizes the use of modern technology, ammunition and weapons suggests that human beings’ use of science and modern warfare tools is futile and pointless. Unlike Ray Bradbury’s short story, the poem ends with the conclusion that nature will ultimately dominate even if human beings try to weaken or destroy it. Ray Bradbury’s short story takes its title from Sara Teasdale’s poem “There Will Come Soft Rains”. Bradbury's short story was published at the end of World War II when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed through atomic bombing. The major theme around which the story revolves is war and its repercussions. Bradbury’s story opens with the post war tragic scene of destruction after which no sign of human beings can be traced.

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“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!’’ Only machines and robots exist. In other words, modernity and technological advancement lead to the destruction of the humanity itself whom it was supposed to benefit. The story deals with the conflict between human beings and the mechanical world. The end of the story reveals the truth about scientific war which wipes everything to its core and is futile. According to Bradbury, technology has completely failed to fulfill the purpose for which it was invented, i.e. to give benefit to human beings. Ray Bradbury’s post-apocalyptic short story gives us an insight into the pointless and destructive nature of scientific and technological advancement. The ending scene of the story suggests that it is the nature that dominates in the end. Despite having too many mechanical features, the house lacks the ability to save itself from the fire caused by the drastic weather conditions. “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! “Fire!" screamed a voice. The house lights flashed, water pumps shot water from the ceilings. But the solvent spread on the linoleum, licking, eating, under the kitchen door, while the voices took it up in chorus: "Fire, fire, fire! “The house tried to save itself. Doors sprang tightly shut, but the windows were broken by the heat and the wind blew and sucked upon the fire. The

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house gave ground as the fire in ten billion angry sparks moved with flaming ease from room to room and then up the stairs. While scurrying water rats squeaked from the walls, pistol led their water, and ran for more. And the wall sprays let down showers of mechanical rain. But too late. Somewhere, sighing, a pump shrugged to a stop. The quenching rain ceased. There serves water supply which had filled baths and washed dishes for many quiet days was gone. 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. Now the fire lay in beds, stood in windows, changed the colors of drapes! And then, reinforcements. From attic trapdoors, blind robot faces peered down with faucet mouths gushing green chemical. The fire backed off, as even an elephant must at the sight of a dead snake’’. War with nature and conflict between humanity and mechanization is evident from the poem. In other words, it can be concluded that Sara Teasdale’s poem, “There Will Come Soft Rains” and Ray Bradbury’s short story “There Will Come Soft Rains” deal with the conflict between nature and human beings. Both the authors give us an insight into the ways in which human beings interact with nature. From the critical analysis of the poem and the short story, it becomes evident that no matter how much human being tries to disrupt the order of nature, it is nature that dominates in the end.

Works Cited: Khikmah, Nurul. Satire Of Man’s Dream Of Using Technology And Its Limitation As Found In Ray Bradbury’s August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains. Diss. UniversitasNegeri Semarang, 2010.

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https://poemanalysis.com/sarah-teasdale/there-will-come-soft-rains/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThere %20Will%20Come%20Soft%20Rains,number%20of%20scenes%20of%20peace. https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/martianchronicles/section7/

https://www.btboces.org/Downloads/7_There%20Will%20Come%20Soft%20Rains%20by %20Ray%20Bradbury.pdf https://www.thoughtco.com/analysis-there-will-come-soft-rains-2990477#:~:text=The%20story %20takes%20its%20title,told%20in%20gentle%2C%20rhyming%20couplets. https://www.litcharts.com/lit/there-will-come-soft-rains/themes/nature-vs-technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Will_Come_Soft_Rains https://www.modernamericanpoetry.org/poem/there-will-come-soft-rains

https://www.enotes.com/topics/there-will-come-soft-rains

https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/what-message-meaning-behind-poem-there-will-come309131 https://www.btboces.org/Downloads/7_There%20Will%20Come%20Soft%20Rains%20by %20Ray%20Bradbury.pdf

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https://poets.org/poem/there-will-come-soft-rains Teasdale, Sara. A Study Guide for Sara Teasdale’s “There Will Come Soft Rains”. Gale Cengage Learning. Labarre, Nicolas. "Absent Humanity: Personification and Spatialization in" There Will Come Soft Rains"." (2018). Rains, Analyzing There Will Come Soft. "Ray Bradbury Essays (Examples)." Indiana Law Journal 47.1: 1-19. Clark, Charles Mildram, and Sara Teasdale. "There Will Come Soft Rains." Bradbury, Ray. "August 2026: There will come soft rains." The Martian Chronicles (1979): 166172.

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