The anguish of the earth men
Professor Allison Ramay
Approaches to Literature
1 June 2010
The Anguish of the Earth Men
Science fiction and fantasy are genres with an incredible amount on liberty at the time of choosing topics and tones. We can find an enormous variety of plots, from amazing stories about future civilizations, to scary tales of the end of the world. Ray Bradbury’s “The EarthMen” from the book The Martian Chronicles is an example of a science fiction story showing a cold view of our future. It is a depressing story of anguish and insanity, sensation created along the narration by different situations the characters go through and the incredibly real tone of despair.
Before starting the analysis, is necessary to have a full view of what this story is about.Shortening, “The Earth Men” shows the days after the 2nd terrestrial expedition arrives to Mars, in charge of Captain Williams and his three men. They soon discover that the Martians do not believe a word the crew says. They think Captain Williams is insane and his crew and rocket are hallucinations created by his mind. After a few tests, a Martian doctor declares the Captain incurable and shoots him. Whenseeing that the crew and the rocket did not disappear, the doctor comes to the conclusion that he is sick too and kills himself. This narration, instead of being a happy tale of accomplishment, strikes us as a tale of doom and desperation, for it attempts against any sense of hope we, as readers, can have about the ending. The story is a succession of confusing situations that slowly lead us to acompletely unexpected ending.
The first sign that alerts us that this is not a regular happy-ending-story is the response of the Martians at the arrival of the expedition. We, as humans, are accustomed to celebrate every accomplishment we achieve as a society. The arrival to Mars is one of our biggest dreams and fantasies, it has been represented in books and movies many times, and we get tosee it crashed in this story. We share the anguish Captain Williams feels when the accomplishment of his dream was not received in the way he expected; Mrs. Ttt, the first Martian they meet, was more concerned about the muffins in the oven than amazed by the Earth men at her front door. Bradbury even plays a little with us in that sense. When the crew finally gets a proper welcome, we get our hopesback only to be destroyed a page later, when we discover that the enthusiastic Martians are, for real, insane. He fooled the characters and he fooled us. He gave us hope and then replaced it with anguish.
The next part of the story brings another situation where the narration gets sank in this anguish. Mr. Iii, the psychiatrist, has a talk with Captain Williams and his men. No matter how hardthe captain tries to convince him, the doctor has an answer for everything: The captain is insane and there is no cure. We and the Earth men are the only ones who know the truth, yet are unable to do anything about it. Helplessly, the Captain is mistaken by crazy and killed. Our immediate response? Frustration and sorrow. Bradbury made a great impression on us by adding these two elements that causediscomfort in most of people, and mixing them in a single situation: being taken as insane.
The feeling of frustration in particular is clearly developed along the narration. Some exasperating situations, one after another, get the characters into a rollercoaster of hope and disappointment. The dialogue during the encounter between Mr. Aaa and the crew works as a perfect example. While CaptainWilliams insistently tries to be heard by the Martian, Mr. Aaa simply ignores him and keeps complaining about Mr. Ttt’s impoliteness behavior. He does not listen to the Earth men, for whom their arrival to Mars was more important than anything else.
When finally a little girl listens to their story, it gets even more frustrating. The girl behaves very badly, picking her nose while listening to...
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