嗨，Dear Emma,
 
這是Melody 轉給我，給妳放上部落格的。

               趙映雪
 

 
 
下面這是她讀了"There will Come Soft Rains" 後寫的感想。中文好像翻成<<細雨將飄>>，或是<<細雨即將來臨>>。我找了一下，有人將全文翻譯放在
 
http://bolimask.blogspot.com/2009/03/fallout-3.html  裡，要看全文再讀感想的，可以參考這部落格。
 
A Look into the Future?
 
What will our world be like in eighteen years? In “There Will Come Soft Rains” Ray Bradbury describes what he believes a day in 2026 will be. The story takes place in a lone house in a world of ashes, torn apart by nuclear weapons. The deserted home is programmed to perform tasks such as making breakfasts, watering gardens, running bathwater, and reading poems, at specified times; even if its inhabitants are long gone. On August 4, 2026, a tree falls down onto the house, knocking over a flammable cleaning solvent, which causes the abandoned home to burst into flames. The building desperately tries to save itself, but the fire takes over the mansion and burns it to ashes, except for a single wall that will stand alone forever in the remains of the past world. After reading the story, readers are left thinking about a meaningful message that Ray Bradbury conveys in “There Will Come Soft Rains” using allusions, personification, and a theme.
First of all, Ray Bradbury makes his predictions of technology verses nature more believable using allusions. By writing with references to past incidents, the story becomes more realistic, because the readers can then relate to it. One such allusion, which the whole story is based on, is to the Sara Teasdale poem, “There Will Come Soft Rains.” The poem supports the story because it shows that another person also has the same opinion as Ray Bradbury. ‘“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’” refers to nature’s apathy toward humans destroying themselves. In the end, the natural will always go on, and humans will just be another species that comes and goes. Another reference to the past is of the wall in Hiroshima where imprints of people were left from the bomb; “The entire west face of the house was black, save for five places. Here the silhouette in paint of a man mowing a lawn. Here, as in photograph, a woman bent to pick flowers. Still farther over, their images burned on wood in one titanic instant, a small boy, hands flung into the air; higher up, the image of a thrown ball, and opposite him a girl, hands raised to catch a ball which never came down”. Because of this, we can also infer that the world in the story was deserted because of a nuclear bomb, similar to the one that devastated Hiroshima. Equally important, an allusion refers to famous artists of the past, “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”. Today, Picasso and Matisse are regarded as exceptional artists, their precious works protected with care. But fire, an element of nature, ruins the paintings ruthlessly, described almost as if it enjoys charring prized works of humans, hinting that even the accomplishments of mankind will be forgotten once the human race annihilates itself. In brief, Ray Bradbury uses allusions largely in his favor; they play an essential part in helping Bradbury pass his belief across to his readers.
        Secondly, Ray Bradbury uses personification to show that the house is the main character of the story. There are no humans or animals alive in the book except for the dog, which quickly dies of radiation. Therefore, the Bradbury personifies the house in order to make it seem alive. “In the kitchen the breakfast stove gave a hissing sigh, and ejected from its warm interior eight pieces of perfectly browned toast, eight eggs sunny side up, sixteen slices of bacon, and two coffees”. Here, the stove “sighed,” as if hoping somebody would come to eat the breakfast, but like always, no one does. The thought of many breakfasts left untouched adds to the feeling of loneliness. Another example of personification is “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”. Bones, skeletons, nerves, skin, veins, and capillaries are all parts of a human, so when used to describe the house, it appears to be a person struggling and dying in the fire. In addition to the house becoming characterized, the flames also become animated. “Now the fire lay in beds, stood in windows, and changed the color of the drapes!”. Fire is a natural element, so when it is described performing human tasks, it gives the image of nature demolishing technology. Overall, by using personification, Bradbury successfully creates a story with a house as a main character.
        Lastly, Ray Bradbury expresses his beliefs through the theme of the story. “There Will Come Soft Rains” tells what the world would be like if humans were destroyed by their own technology. Bradbury illustrates his theory through the automated voices “And the voices wailed, Fire, fire, run, run, like a tragic nursery rhyme, a dozen voices, high, low, like children dying in the forest, alone, alone. And the voices fading as the wires popped their sheathings like hot chestnuts. One, two, three, four, five voices died”. The desperate voices of children represent the helplessness of the house when the fire overwhelms it, and also the hopeless position humans will be in when their own inventions turn against them. Furthermore, Bradbury conveys his idea of the world going on after the extinction of humans through the last words of the story, “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…’”. One wall survives the catastrophe to report the date the next morning, which symbolizes life going on. Another support to this belief is the Sara Teasdale 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’”. Teasdale believes that after humans kill themselves, nobody would remember them, and nature would just carry on as if humans never existed. All in all, Bradbury successfully shares his message through the theme of the story.
        In conclusion, allusions, personification, and themes help Ray Bradbury bring across an unforgettable message in “There Will Come Soft Rains.” Readers learn, through reading this story that human extinction could be caused by themselves. Many of Ray Bradbury’s stories are based on that his strong belief that “advances in science and technology should never come at the expense of human beings”. He has been writing since age twelve, and throughout his life has written over two thousand short stories. Other books that he is known for include the short-story collections The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man; and also the novel Fahrenheit 451. Like many of his other creations, Ray Bradbury leaves the reader asking themselves whether the story is just a product of imagination, or is it a look into our future? 
 

另外，要謝謝妳及所有為Melody投票的朋友。Melody 據說在 Show Us Your America 圖畫比賽中，得了第三名。會用「據說」，是因為還沒正式公佈，所以我們也不知道前兩名是誰。等真正打算等公佈後，我會再寫一份email 謝謝大家。
 
Laura