"The Martian Chronicles" by Ray Bradbury

In Bradbury’s galaxy no world

 shines brighter than the fourth

 planet from the sun.

Composition

It is rather difficult to define the genre of “The Martian Chronicles”, perhaps, the most appropriate term for it is novel in short stories. The text of the Chronicles consists of two different types of stories – the main short stories that make up the major plot line of the work and something similar to intermezzi intervening with them. The latter are short, mostly plotless, sketches, which help the author to create the necessary atmosphere and the sense of a measured time flow, sometimes to describe the culture of Mars, but more often to show the interaction of Earthlings and Martians, the changes on the planet caused by people.

The stories are arranged in chronological order, describing the period from 1999 to 2026, besides, each of them contains a character, an artistic detail, an action which connects it to other stories of the collection. Nevertheless, each part can be easily perceived separately so the reader can make his/her own sequence of the Chronicles.

Mars and Martians

The Martian lifestyle imagined by Bradbury doesn’t differ from ours as much as it may seem at first sight. All the things we use in our everyday routine are also present there – streets and houses, books and newspapers, cutlery, furniture and décor – all this exists on Mars but finds quite a different embodiment.

“They had a house of crystal pillars on the planet Mars by the edge of an empty sea, and every morning you could see Mrs. K eating the golden fruits that grew from the crystal walls, or cleaning the house with handfuls of magnetic dust which, taking all dirt with it, blew away on the hot wind. Afternoons, when the fossil sea was warm and motionless, and the wine trees stood stiff in the yard, and the little distant Martian bone town was all enclosed, and no one drifted out their doors, you could see Mr. K himself in his room, reading from a metal book with raised hieroglyphs over which he brushed his hand, as one might play a harp. And from the book, as his fingers stroked, a voice sang, a soft ancient voice, which told tales of when the sea was red steam on the shore and ancient men had carried clouds of metal insects and electric spiders into battle”.

But there is something that profoundly differs the Martians from the Earthlings – their attitude to the world surrounding them, to themselves and the life in general.

 “The Martians discovered the secret of life among animals. The animal does not question life. It lives. Its very reason for living is life; it enjoys and relishes life. You see — the statuary, the animal symbols, again and again.”

“ Man had become too much man and not enough animal on Mars too. And the men of Mars realized that in order to survive they would have to forgo asking that one question any longer: Why live? Life was its own answer. Life was the propagation of more life and the living of as good a life is possible.”

The inhabitants of this planet are characterized by contemplation, unity with nature and love of life. Having overcome the period of wars and discords, the learned a better understanding of each other, learned to value their life and sincere feelings. Their almost epicurean craving for pleasures doesn’t cross reasonable measures – they are able to enjoy what they have and live to make the world around them more beautiful.

Bradbury’s Martians resemble American Indians and other similar civilizations in their animalistic cult and syncretism:

“Only when it paid to be naive. They quit trying too hard to destroy everything, to humble everything. They blended religion and art and science because, at base, science is no more than an investigation of a miracle we can never explain, and art is an interpretation of that mirade. They never let science crush the aesthetic and the beautiful”.

Without separating religion, science and art, Martians managed to get all these three elements to serve a single aim – creation of beauty. “They stopped where we should have stopped a hundred years ago”, - says one of Bradbury’s characters and here he is absolutely right – Earthlings with their technical progress and endless wars approached the point where art and science began to destroy all authorities and values, where religion was cast away as a phenomenon opposed to science, but what did we gain instead? We ruined the old world but couldn’t build a new one.

Martians chose a wiser path, having reached a certain level of culture, they decided to stop there, to be satisfied with what they already had and therefore avoided the collapse of civilization, which fell upon the Earth in 20th century.

The inhabitants of the Red Planet are prone to fatalism, they believe that their fate is predisposed and for that reason they stay amazingly calm accepting everything that happens to them including the arrival of strangers from the Earth.

They think they are merely guests on their planet, who have no right to destroy or rebuild it for their pleasures and thus treat it very carefully. Bradbury portrays Mars as a living being, it becomes one of the characters and Bradbury grants it the power to fight the invaders and benefit those who respect it. In the story “Green Morning” Benjamin Driscoll, who was inspired by the idea of filling the deserted fields of Mars with trees and flowers got an award for his hard work – one morning he woke up amidst an immense green valley, bathing in freshness and wondrous scents of herbs. But to those who carry destruction and chaos Mars is merciless, although when the danger is eliminated it always returns to its infinite calmness.

Guests or invaders?

One day people appear on Mars. What are they intending to bring? The Earthlings themselves call it “civilization” but who can prove that Earth civilization is better or morally higher than the civilization of Mars?

The story “The Summer Night” describes the approaching of people as something ominous, frightening, Martians don’t know yet what is going to happen to them but they are sure that after the arrival of Earthlings their life will never be the same.

Not in vain Bradbury calls the rockets carrying the newcomers “silver locusts”. People come to Mars feeling like conquistadors, like owners and they are ready to reconstruct the planet to their own liking, to bring their hot dogs, motorcycles and… atomic bombs. It doesn’t occur to them, that the fourth planet from the sun already has some inhabitants and that their arrival might be not welcomed.

The stories can be divided into two parts according to the theme. The first one pictures Mars trying to get rid of unwanted guests, sometimes in a mild and sometimes in rather harsh ways.

The second part depicts the process of forcing Earth ways onto the planet and Mars eventually gives in knowing that these ways won’t stay for long…

Nevertheless Earthlings are full of hopes and ambitions, they begin to build houses and stations, bring electricity and technical appliances, establish their rules on the territories which seem to be conquered. But are they in fact? Martians are still nearby, just waiting for their moment…

People believe they act as benefactors changing everything but as a matter of fact Martian life is beyond their understanding and therefore frightening for them, they are trying to make everything around look like their native lands which inevitably destroys the beautiful Martian civilization. Only a few realize their fatal influence upon the planet:

“We Earth Men have a talent for ruining big, beautiful things. The only reason we didn’t set up hot-dog stands in the midst of the Egyptian temple of Karnak is because it was out of the way and served no large commercial purpose. And Egypt is a small part of Earth. But here, this whole thing is ancient and different, and we have to set down somewhere and start fouling it up.”

The conquest of Mars is a complex metaphor for the technical progress. Attempting to improve, to perfect, to modernize everything, we sometimes go beyond all measures and ruin everything beautiful for the sake of modernization. In the story “Asher II” Bradbury touches upon the theme characteristic of his creative works that found its best representation in the novel “Fahrenheit 451” – the theme of fatal influence of technical progress upon the culture.

But, in spite of all that, Mars doesn’t always suffer from people, sometimes it can awaken their best qualities – bravery, decisiveness, ability to dream, imagination, attraction to undiscovered. In the story “Way in the Middle of the Air” Bradbury compares the Red Planet to Heaven, where black servants from Southern States go is search of a better life.

But however people might behave on the fourth planet, they are unable to eliminate this ancient and wise world which is much stronger than any of them. One day people will leave Mars and when they return again their attitude to the planet will be quite different. They will come as guests, they will come in search of something lost on Earth, looking for solace and help. And then Mars will gladly accept them and teach them to live by its own rules. The main thing to remember is as follows:

“Looking at all this, we know we’re not so hot; we’re kids in rompers, shouting with our play rockets and atoms, loud and alive. But one day Earth will be as Mars is today. This will sober us. It’s an object lesson in civilizations. We’ll learn from Mars.”