There Will Come Soft Rains

There Will Come Soft Rains
by Ray Bradbury
LITERARY FOCUS: SETTING AS CHARACTER
Usually setting is in the background of a story, while characters
people and animalstake care of the action. But what if the setting
demands a bigger role? Or even a starring part? In some stories the
setting moves out of the background and becomes a character. For
example, in a story about a woman lost in the desert, the main conflict
could be between the person and the setting. The desert may seem to
act against the woman like a characterby pounding her with hot sun,
threatening her with rattlesnakes, and hiding water from her.
Read on to find out where and when There Will Come Soft Rains is
set. Its a setting you probably wont forget soon.
READING SKILLS: TEXT STRUCTURES (CHRONOLOGY)

in the order in which they occur. In other words, you learn what happens first, then you learn what happens next, and so on.
In There Will Come Soft Rains, the story that follows, the events are
told in chronological order. In fact, we learn what happens from one
hour to the next.
Literary Skills
Understand the
role of setting.
Reading Skills
Understand
chronological
order.
Vocabulary
Skills
Use context
clues.
96
Part 1
Collection 3 / Being There
Copyright by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.
Most stories are told in chronological orderthe events are presented
PREVIEW SELECTION VOCABULARY

Become familiar with these words before you read There Will Come
Soft Rains.
paranoia (parn) n.: mental disorder
tremulous (tremyls) adj.: trembling.
that causes people to feel unreasonable
The tremulous branches swayed in the night

breezes.
distrust and suspicion.
The house was so concerned with self-protection

that it almost seemed to suffer from paranoia.
oblivious (blivs) adj.: unaware.
The mechanical house was oblivious of events in

the world outside.
cavorting (kvrti) v. used as adj.: leaping

about; frolicking.
sublime (sblm) adj.: majestic; grand.
Images of panthers could be seen cavorting on

the walls of the nursery.
The sublime poetry was recited until the very end.
CLARIFYING WORD MEANINGS: WORDS IN CONTEXT

Context refers to the sentence or paragraph in which a word appears.
Context clues can help you figure out a words meaning. There are
different kinds of context clues, including definitions, restatements,

examples, and contrasts. Here are some examples:
DEFINITION: Something that is automatic works by itself.
RESTATEMENT: His reflexes were automatic. He didnt think before
acting.
EXAMPLE: Automatic machines have changed the way we live. Think,
for example, of the impact that furnaces, heart-lung machines, and
even answering machines have had on our lives.
CONTRAST: Unlike regular vacuum cleaners, automatic vacuum cleaners do not need to be pushed or pulled.
When you come across unfamiliar words in There Will Come Soft
Rains, look for context clues to help you figure out what those
words mean.
97
7:00
Pause at line 6. Why do you
think the house is empty?
In the living room the voice-clock sang,

Ticktock, seven oclock, time to get up, time to get
up, seven oclock! 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!
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
Circle the details in lines 116

that identify the settingthe
time and place of the story.
10
bacon, and two coffees.
There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury. Copyright 1950 by the Crowell-Collier Publishing Co.;
copyright renewed 1977 by Ray Bradbury. Reproduced by permission of Don Congdon Associates, Inc.
98
Part 1
Tom Leonard.
Ray Bradbury
Today is August 4, 2026, said a second voice from

the kitchen ceiling, in the city of Allendale, California. It
repeated the date three times for memorys sake. Today is
Mr. Featherstones birthday. Today is the anniversary of
Tilitas marriage. Insurance is payable, as are the water, gas,
and light bills.
What happensor doesnt

happenbetween 8:01 A.M.
and 9:15 A.M. that suggests
that all is not well with the
humans who own this house
(lines 1932)?
Somewhere in the walls, relays clicked, memory tapes

glided under electric eyes.
8:01
Eight-one, tick-tock, eight-one oclock, off to school,

off to work, run, run, eight-one! But no doors
20
slammed, no carpets took the soft tread of rubber heels.

It was raining outside. The weather box on the front door
sang quietly: Rain, rain, go away; rubbers, raincoats for
today . . . And the rain tapped on the empty house, echoing.
Outside, the garage chimed and lifted its door to reveal
the waiting car. After a long wait the door swung down again.
At eight-thirty the eggs were shriveled and the toast
was like stone. An aluminum wedge scraped them into the
sink, where hot water whirled them down a metal throat
30
which digested and flushed them away to the distant sea.

The dirty dishes were dropped into a hot washer and
emerged twinkling dry.
Nine-fifteen, sang the clock, time to clean.
Underline the details in lines

4145 that tell you how this
house is different from the
other houses in the neighborhood. What seems to
have happened to the city?
Out of warrens1 in the wall, tiny robot mice darted.

The rooms were acrawl with the small cleaning animals, all
rubber and metal. They thudded against chairs, whirling
their moustached runners, kneading the rug nap, sucking
gently at hidden dust. Then, like mysterious invaders, they
popped into their burrows. Their pink electric eyes faded.
40
The house was clean.
10:00
Ten oclock. The sun came out from behind the

rain. The house stood alone in a city of rubble
1. warrens n.: small, crowded spaces. The little holes in the ground in
which rabbits live are called warrens.
99
and ashes. This was the one house left standing. At night
the ruined city gave off a radioactive glow which could be
seen for miles.
Write a number, from 1 to 5,

over the details describing
each of the five silhouettes
on the wall of the house.
What has caused the five silhouettes to be burned on
wood (lines 4660)?
Ten-fifteen. The garden sprinklers whirled up in golden

founts, filling the soft morning air with scatterings of
brightness. The water pelted windowpanes, running down
the charred west side where the house had been burned
50
evenly free of its white paint. 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 a 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.
Personification is a figure of
speech in which an object or
animal is spoken of as if it
has human qualities. Circle
the words and phrases in
lines 6371 that portray the
houses human qualities.
The five spots of paintthe man, the woman, the children, the ballremained. The rest was a thin charcoaled
60
layer.
The gentle sprinkler rain filled the garden with falling
Until this day, how well the house had kept its peace.
How carefully it had inquired, Who goes there? Whats the
paranoia (parn) n.:

mental disorder that causes
people to feel unreasonable
distrust and suspicion.
password? and, getting no answer from lonely foxes and

whining cats, it had shut up its windows and drawn shades
in an old-maidenly preoccupation with self-protection
which bordered on a mechanical paranoia.
Who are the gods who have

gone away (lines 7375)?
It quivered at each sound, the house did. If a sparrow

70
brushed a window, the shade snapped up. The bird, startled, flew off! No, not even a bird must touch the house!
The house was an altar with ten thousand attendants,
big, small, servicing, attending, in choirs. But the gods had
gone away, and the ritual of the religion continued senselessly, uselessly.
100
Part 1
light.
12:00
Twelve noon.
A dog whined, shivering, on the front porch.
The front door recognized the dog voice and opened.

The dog, once huge and fleshy, but now gone to bone and
80
covered with sores, moved in and through the house, tracking mud. Behind it whirred angry mice, angry at having to
Re-read lines 7799. This

section is filled with images,
details that appeal to your
senses. Circle three images
that appeal to three different senses.
pick up mud, angry at inconvenience.

For not a leaf fragment blew under the door but what
the wall panels flipped open and the copper scrap rats
flashed swiftly out. The offending dust, hair, or paper,
seized in miniature steel jaws, was raced back to the bur-
Pause at line 107. Will the

house continue to go on
doing its work forever?
Tell what you think might
happen next.
rows. There, down tubes which fed into the cellar, it was
dropped into the sighing vent of an incinerator which sat
like evil Baal2 in a dark corner.
90
The dog ran upstairs, hysterically yelping to each door,

at last realizing, as the house realized, that only silence was
here.
It sniffed the air and scratched the kitchen door.
Behind the door, the stove was making pancakes which

filled the house with a rich baked odor and the scent of
maple syrup.
The dog frothed at the mouth, lying at the door, sniffing,
its eyes turned to fire. It ran wildly in circles, biting at its tail,
spun in a frenzy, and died. It lay in the parlor for an hour.
100
2:00
Two oclock, sang a voice.

Delicately sensing decay at last, the regiments
of mice hummed out as softly as blown gray leaves in an

electrical wind.
Two-fifteen.
The dog was gone.
In the cellar, the incinerator glowed suddenly and a
whirl of sparks leaped up the chimney.
2. Baal (bl): in the Bible, the god of Canaan, whom the Israelites came
to regard as a false god.
101
Two thirty-five.
Bridge tables sprouted from patio walls. Playing cards
The childrens nursery is
vividly described. Underline
the details in lines 118132
that bring that setting to life.
110
fluttered onto pads in a shower of pips.3 Martinis manifested on an oaken bench with egg-salad sandwiches.
Music played.
But the tables were silent and the cards untouched.
At four oclock the tables folded like great butterflies
cavorting (kvrti) v.
used as adj.: leaping about;
frolicking.
back through the paneled walls.

Four-thirty.
The nursery walls glowed.
Animals took shape: yellow giraffes, blue lions, pink
Flip back through the story,

noting the times of day that
are called out. Why does
Bradbury include the exact
times of specific events? How
does knowing the exact time
increase the suspense?
antelopes, lilac panthers cavorting in crystal substance. The

120
walls were glass. They looked out upon color and fantasy.
Hidden films clocked through well-oiled sprockets,4 and the
walls lived. The nursery floor was woven to resemble a crisp
cereal5 meadow. Over this ran aluminum roaches and iron
crickets, and in the hot, still air butterflies of delicate red
tissue wavered among the sharp aromas of animal spoors!6
There was the sound like a great matted yellow hive of bees
And there was the patter of okapi7 feet and the murmur of a
fresh jungle rain, like other hoofs, falling upon the summer-
130
starched grass. Now the walls dissolved into distances of

parched weed, mile on mile, and warm endless sky. The
animals drew away into thorn brakes8 and water holes.
It was the childrens hour.
5:00
Five oclock. The bath filled with clear hot water.
3. pips n.: figures on cards.

4. sprockets n.: wheels with points designed to fit into the holes along
the edges of a filmstrip.
5. cereal n. used as adj.: of grasses that produce grain.
6. spoors n.: animal tracks or droppings.
7. okapi (kp) n.: African animal related to the giraffe but with
a much shorter neck.
8. thorn brakes: clumps of thorns; thickets.
102
Part 1
within a dark bellows, the lazy bumble of a purring lion.
Six, seven, eight oclock. The dinner dishes manipulated

like magic tricks, and in the study a click. In the metal stand
opposite the hearth where a fire now blazed up warmly, a
cigar popped out, half an inch of soft gray ash on it, smok-
Retell in two or three sentences what is happening in

the poem (lines 149160).
ing, waiting.
140
Nine oclock. The beds warmed their hidden circuits,

for nights were cool here.
Nine-five. A voice spoke from the study ceiling:
Mrs. McClellan, which poem would you like this
evening?
The house was silent.
The voice said at last, Since you express no preference,
I shall select a poem at random. Quiet music rose to back
the voice. Sara Teasdale. As I recall, your favorite. . . .
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
150
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
How is nature in the poem

like nature in this story?
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
160
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
tremulous (tremyls) adj.:

trembling. Tremulous also
means fearful or timid.
103
Tom Leonard.
Pause at line 165, and tell

how you think the house
might die.
The fire burned on the stone hearth, and the cigar fell
away into a mound of quiet ash on its tray. The empty
chairs faced each other between the silent walls, and the
music played.
10:00
The wind blew. A falling tree bough crashed

through the kitchen window. Cleaning solvent,9 bottled,
shattered over the stove. The room was ablaze in an instant!
Fire! screamed a voice. The house lights flashed,
170
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 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
9. solvent n.: something that can dissolve something else (here, something that dissolves dirt). Solvent, dissolve, and solution have the same
Latin root, solvere, which means to loosen.
104
Part 1
A conflict has arisen in the

story. On one side of the
conflict is the house and all
the scientific progress and
advanced machinery it stands
for. Whom or what is the
house battling?
At ten oclock the house began to die.
from the walls, pistoled their water, and ran for more. And
180
the wall sprays let down showers of mechanical rain.
Notes
But too late. Somewhere, sighing, a pump shrugged to

a stop. The quenching rain ceased. The reserve 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
Matisses10 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!
190
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. Now there were twenty snakes whipping over the floor, killing the fire with a clear cold venom
of green froth.
But the fire was clever. It had sent flame outside the
house, up through the attic to the pumps there. An explosion! The attic brain which directed the pumps was shattered
200
into bronze shrapnel on the beams.

The fire rushed back into every closet and felt of the
clothes hung there.
The house shuddered, oak bone on bone, its bared
skeleton cringing from the heat, its wire, its nerves revealed
Underline at least three

details in lines 185202 that
personify the firethat
make the fire seem human.
as if a surgeon had torn the skin off to let the red veins and
capillaries quiver in the scalded air. Help, help! Fire! Run,
run! Heat snapped mirrors like the first brittle winter ice.
And the voices wailed, Fire, fire, run, run, like a tragic nursery rhyme, a dozen voices, high, low, like children dying in
10. Picassos and Matisses: paintings by Pablo Picasso (18811973), a

famous Spanish painter and sculptor who worked in France, and by
Henri Matisse ( mts) (18691954), a famous French painter.
Read the boxed passage

aloud at least twice. Read for
basic meaning the first time
you read. Before you read the
passage aloud a second time,
mark the lines to show which
ones you will read loudly,
softly, quickly, or slowly.
105
210
a forest, alone, alone. And the voices fading as the wires

popped their sheathings11 like hot chestnuts. One, two,
oblivious (blivs) adj.:

unaware.
three, four, five voices died.
sublime (sblm) adj.:

majestic; grand.
purple giraffes bounded off. The panthers ran in circles,
In the nursery the jungle burned. Blue lions roared,

changing color, and ten million animals, running before the
fire, vanished off toward a distant steaming river. . . .
Ten more voices died. In the last instant under the fire
Re-read lines 217228. Why

are so many things happening at once in the house?
avalanche, other choruses, oblivious, could be heard

announcing the time, playing music, cutting the lawn by
220
remote-control mower, or setting an umbrella frantically out

and in, the slamming and opening front door, a thousand
things happening, like a clock shop when each clock strikes
the hour insanely before or after the other, a scene of maniac
confusion, yet unity; singing, screaming, a few last cleaning
mice darting bravely out to carry the horrid ashes away! And
one voice, with sublime disregard for the situation, read
poetry aloud in the fiery study, until all the film spools
burned, until all the wires withered and the circuits cracked.
230
ing out skirts of spark and smoke.

In the kitchen, an instant before the rain of fire and
timber, the stove could be seen making breakfasts at a
psychopathic12 rate, ten dozen eggs, six loaves of toast,
twenty dozen bacon strips, which, eaten by fire, started the
stove working again, hysterically hissing!
The crash. The attic smashing into kitchen and parlor.
The parlor into cellar, cellar into subcellar. Deep freeze,
armchair, film tapes, circuits, beds, and all like skeletons
thrown in a cluttered mound deep under.
Circle the details in lines

229240 that describe the
final battle between the fire
and the house.
Smoke and silence. A great quantity of smoke.
240
11. sheathings n.: protective coverings.

12. psychopathic (skpaik) adj.: insane.
106
Part 1
The fire burst the house and let it slam flat down, puff-
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,
Tom Leonard.
today is . . .
What idea about scientific

advances is Bradbury warning us about? Tell whether or
not you agree with his message. Give reasons for your
opinion.
107

Whats Really Going On? Chart
In this story, Ray Bradbury describes

some hideous events. But as the reader, you have to keep asking yourself
the question Whats really going on here? It is not always clear what is
actually happening. For help following the story, use this time chart. Each
tinted row contains a time and a main story event that the writer tells us
happened at that time. Fill in each untinted box with what you think is
really happening at that time. The first one is done for you.
Reading Skills
Analyze
chronological
order.
Summary of Main Events
Whats Really Going On?
7:00 A clock announces the time. A stove fixes breakfast automatically.

It seems as if the house has been abandoned by people, but its still operating as if
its alive.
8:01 Garage door opens, but no one comes out. House is cleaned by robot mice.
House is the only one in the city. Rest of city is in ashes and glows as if from
12:00 A starving dog walks into the house and searches for people. Dog dies in house.
2:00 Bridge tables pop out from the walls. Nursery walls seem to come alive.
Bath fills with water, and dinner dishes are washed. The house prepares
5:00 for bedtime.
10:00 House catches fire. Robots try to put out fire. The house burns down.
108
Part 1
10:00 radiation. Images of people are on the wall of the house.
Skills Review
VOCABULARY AND COMPREHENSION
A. Clarifying Meanings: Words in Context Fill in the blanks with
Word Bank
the correct Word Bank words. Then, underline the context clues.
paranoia
1. The
music filled our hearts with its greatness.
2. People suffering from
tend to look at people
cavorting
tremulous
oblivious
with suspicion and distrust.
sublime
3. We could see the children jumping around the playground,
with their friends.
4.
, the scared little dog hid behind a chair.
5. The smiling, calm mother seemed
to the
chaos around her.
B. Reading Comprehension Answer each question below.

1. When and where does this story take place?
2. What details tell you the city has been destroyed?
3. What happens to the dog?
4. At the end of the story, what happens to the house?
Vocabulary
Skills
Use context
clues.
109

There Will Come Soft Rains

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There Will Come Soft Rains

READING SKILLS: TEXT STRUCTURES (CHRONOLOGY)

Collection 3 / Being There

Copyright by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.

Most stories are told in chronological orderthe events are presented

PREVIEW SELECTION VOCABULARY

tremulous (tremyls) adj.: trembling.

that causes people to feel unreasonable

The tremulous branches swayed in the night

distrust and suspicion.

The house was so concerned with self-protection

oblivious (blivs) adj.: unaware.

The mechanical house was oblivious of events in

cavorting (kvrti) v. used as adj.: leaping

sublime (sblm) adj.: majestic; grand.

Images of panthers could be seen cavorting on

The sublime poetry was recited until the very end.

CLARIFYING WORD MEANINGS: WORDS IN CONTEXT

different kinds of context clues, including definitions, restatements,