Bilingual English Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León Preparatoria no. 9 Group 330 Team 2 • Natalia Daenna González Viera • Miranda Inaara Flores Abrego • Jorge Alberto Cantú Reyes * Karina Lizeth Limas Macías * Eduardo Ortega Corpus
Author: Ray Bradbury ◦ (August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012) was an American author and screenwriter. He worked in a variety of genres, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, and mystery fiction. ◦ Throughout his youth, Bradbury was an avid reader and writer and knew at a young age that he was "going into one of the arts." Bradbury began writing his own stories at age 11 (1931), during the Great Depression — sometimes writing on the only available paper, butcher paper. ◦ Recipient of numerous awards, including a 2007 Pulitzer Citation, Bradbury also wrote and consulted on screenplays and television scripts. Many of his works were adapted to comic book, television, and film formats. ◦ On his death in 2012, The New York Times called Bradbury "the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream".
Setting â—Ś The story have a post-apocalyptic setting inspired by World War I â—Ś The story's events take place in a deserted house in the city of Allendale, California.
Background Bathroom
Bedroom
Kitchen
The destroyed street
Theme â—Ś The story is about an alone house where there are many technologic and smart devices who carry out all the chores for a family but no one answers nor enjoy the house. All the street, even the city looks like if it was completely burned and destroyed, maybe by an explosion or bomb. At the end of the story, the house gets on fire, fire caused by a tree from the outside.
The dead family
Characters Family entertainment’s animals
Technologic robotic devices
Technologic mice
Family’s dog
Brief summary about the plot â—Ś The story begins by introducing the reader to a computer-controlled house that cooks, cleans, and takes care of virtually every need that a well-to-do United States family could be assumed to have. The reader enters the text on the morning of April 28, 1985 (changed to August 4, 2026 in later printings), and follows the house through some of the daily tasks that it performs as it prepares its inhabitants for a day of work. At first, it is not apparent that anything is out of the ordinary, but eventually it becomes clear that the residents of the house are not present, and that the house is empty. While no direct explanation of the nonexistence of the family is produced, the silhouettes of a man, a woman, two children, and their play ball are described as having been burnt into one side of the house, implying that they were all incinerated by the thermal flash of a nuclear weapon.The house is described as standing amidst the ruins of a city; the leveled urban area is described briefly as emitting a "radioactive glow". The house is the only thing left standing, and continues to perform its duties, unaware that the family is gone. At one point, further insight into the demise of the family is given when a tape recorder within the house recites a poem by Sara Teasdale called "There Will Come Soft Rains". The poem describes how the Earth's other living things, and implicitly nature as a whole, are unaffected by an event of human extinction that has occurred as the result of an unnamed disaster.At ten o'clock p.m., a gust of wind blows a tree branch through the kitchen window, spilling cleaning solvent on the stove and causing a fire to break out. The house warns the family to get out of the building and tries shutting doors to limit the spread. The house also attempts to fight the fire, but its water reservoirs have been depleted after numerous days of cooking and cleaning without replenishment. The building is ravaged by the blaze and is almost completely destroyed except for one surviving wall, the same wall with the shadows of the family burnt into it, which continues to give the time and date the following morning.
Literary Elements ◦ CHARACTERIZATION: In the story, the author used many literary elements as the characterization of certain things, this because the story don’t have human characters, although there are technologic advanced devices able to carry out most of the human home tasks, thereby, all of the devices count as the characters, and the author give to a minimum amount of them determined characteristics, capacities, or even physical description as like happened with the family’s dog. In addition, the author describes very well each setting placed in the story.
◦ CONFLICT: The conflict was perfectly showed by the author since the start of the story because it seems perfectly how despite of the super advanced technology of the future, human creations wouldn’t be able to overcome the mother nature. So we can conclude that the conflict were between the humans and their technologic creations vs. the nature.
◦ FLASHBACK: In certain part of the story narrated there was indirectly presented by a “flashback” a scene where the family was in the house like a simple futuristic family, and then it jumps to the scene where everybody were burned by an unidentified and unexpected explosion.
◦ FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE: The author used many times the simile, metaphor, alliteration, the personification and the hyperbole in most of the paragraphs, and that was what caused the strong impact in the reader’s senses, thereby producing a great connection between the reader and the background or setting, making the readers to feels like if they are inside the story. all of this just because the author of the story described so well each detail or event found in the story pretty completely, precisely and detailed.
Reading Comprehension Strategy â—Ś The author used the Chhronological Order, that is a way of organize the story and also, because of what is the story abput, makes you start to analyze what is happening in the place. â—Ś Also he used the Drawing Conclusion, it is a way in which the reader starts to find out what is happening and also starts to be prepared about what can come next. It is a way of learning the parts and special details in the story.
Vocabulary in context Paranoia
Manipulate
It is a noun that means an unreasonable fear of danger or misfortune.
It is a verb that means to move, operate, or handle.
Oblivious
Sublime
It is an adjective that means paying no attention or completely unaware.
It is an adjective that means supreme, noble, or awe-inspiring.
Personal Reflection The main characteristic from Bradbury's story is their propose to make us reflect about the strong impossibilities from the humans to completely control the entire world, even if they invent more and more efficient technological devices, smarter and smarter; that ”smart” devices or even “robotic humans” are so silly if we compare them with the high intelligence from the mother nature. As we know, humans are the perfect and better natural machine created, but that doesn’t mean that they have a perfect mind or can create things that control who created everything and started us. It is a law that the nature always will be smarter than the human beings, even if we think about it wisely. The reality is that we have been destroying ourselves with our “smart” products and as gift from us, also destroying the nature, our nature.
Vocabulary Activity • The ______________________ of an avian flu pandemic has drawn vital resources from other health areas and has largely benefited the pharmaceutical industry and the media. • However, the prevailing human pressure seems ________________________ of the water, an irreplaceable resource. • Spreadsheets and other tools used to store and ________________________ monitoring data shall be free from error. • Walks through the vineyards, horse or bicycle, turn into ________________________ experiences in a natural paradise.
Comprehension Activity ◦ Based on the details described since the start, what happened before the events of this story? _____________________________________________________________ ◦ The description of the fire suggests that the technology in the house— ◦ A – will continue to function effectively ◦ B – wants the fire to continue burning ◦ C – cannot overcome nature ◦ D – is more dangerous than the fire ◦ Where is localized the house where the story centers? __________________________ ◦ Which is the year when the story carries out? ______________________