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Example research essay topic: Martian Chronicles Ray Bradbury - 1,633 words

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In the genre of science fiction, many writers have changed the way people think about the future and the thoughts of society, but none have created the same amount of change as Ray Bradbury. Through his unique writing style of combining science fiction and sophisticated writing, (Discovering Authors 1) Ray Bradbury changed the genre of science fiction by questioning society's absent-minded use of technology by portraying apocalyptic futures. His works have inspired many science fiction writers and comic artists to portray their thoughts and themes of the time and have showed people how technology can become the downfall of society. Ray Bradbury was an important figure to the genre of science fiction, and created a new way of writing it. Before Bradbury, science fiction was mainly found in pulp magazines and comic books, which were read by a small minority of readers. Bradbury was able to use this type of fiction, and changed it by writing this type of fantasy into novel form, using sophisticated writing techniques (Jones 406).

With the publication of his novel, Martian Chronicles, Bradbury's reputation soared and changed society's opinion of the once neglected genre of science fiction. By writing in this style, Bradbury was able to incorporate a sense of innocence, much like a childs curious mind. As many of his critics have pointed out, that no matter how horrid of depressing the circumstances of the novel are, Bradbury attempts to find good traits in everything. He attempted to find a moral to stories and create a sense of despair if we continue our bad traits. Bradbury was born on August 22, 1920, in the city of Waukegan, Illinois. As a child, Bradbury had a pleasant childhood, and he wrote about the Midwest, and the plain lands near his Illinois home, and the affect that they had in his life.

In his novel Dandelion Wine, Bradbury attempts to recreate his childhood in a fantastical sense, and used the experience of writing the novel to relive his childhood. For him it was a re-creation of a world he once knew, with the addition of fantasy and adventure. Another major factor that affected his life was his love and curiosity for magic. At age 11, he attended the magic show of Blackstone the Magician, and later Mr. Electric (Holmes 12). He wrote in one of his later essays how these experiences affected him and his writing career.

Mr. Electric cried, Live forever. A few weeks Later I started writing my first short stories about the planet Mars, and from that time on I have never stopped. (Ray Bradbury, XIV-XV) Bradbury's family soon moved to Arizona and then in 1934 to Los Angeles, where he has lived ever since. After he completed high school in Los Angeles, he sold newspapers and bought a typewriter while renting an office to write in. He wrote short stories for pulp magazines such as Black Mask, and Weird Tales. As he wrote for Weird Tales, his editor August Delete admired his writing style and convinced Bradbury to compile his short stories.

Thus produced, was Bradbury's first novel, Dark Carnival (1947), a collection of Bradbury's fantasy tales, although Bradbury would not write fantasy novels again in his career. Bradbury continued to write independently and in 1950, published The Martian Chronicles, hailed to be Bradbury's best work and masterpiece. Telling a collection of short stories about the conquest of the planet Mars, Bradbury describes the inexhaustible wilderness, or the final frontier, space. Bradbury was deeply affected by Frederick Jackson Turners, the frontier thesis (Man thorne, 77), saying that that American life was determined by the frontier and how we are able to respond to it. The Martian Chronicles were able to tell tales about space and the environment, but his underlying themes included racism, nuclear war, technology and censorship. As Bradbury's reputation grew, he continued to write a prolific amount of short stories, plays and novels including Something Wicked This Way Comes, Dandelion Wine, The Illustrated Man, and Fahrenheit 451, along with the screen play for Moby Dick and many unpublished poems and short stories (Ross 10).

Bradbury was well known by his use of showing society (Guidry 11), as it would become with widespread technology and lack of interest in knowledge. His novel Fahrenheit 451 describes this type of society with great detail, and was one of his most popular novels. Fahrenheit 451 deals with a society where people as a whole have lost their interest in knowledge and the government subsequently banned the production or possession of books, destroying the peoples only chance of learning from past mistakes leaders again. The main character, Guy Montag represents Bradbury in the novel, and is employed with the government as a firefighter. Ironically in these days, houses were fire proof, and the firemen were employed to light books on fire.

In the novel, one of the repeating questions was Is it true that long ago firemen were paid to put out fires instead of create them? In the storys beginning Montag meets a young girl named Clarisse McClellan, who represents Bradbury's conscience. As they walk along the route Montag takes home everyday, Clarisse questions Montag's happiness and morals, and he begins to see that he is living a superficial life in a superficial world. As he questions himself about these ideas, he decides to steal a book before it was burned, and brings it home to his wife, Mildred. In this character, Bradbury shows how the society behaves and is evident in Mildred's behavior. (Bleiler, p 15) She is into drug abuse and in one scene it shows Mildred had overdosed on sleeping pills, and vaguely mentions that this had happened before. Montag called the paramedics but instead two electricians came with a machine called the snake that sucked all fluids out of her and replaced them.

After a 50 -dollar charge, the electricians explain that they must move on, because there are 2 more overdose suicides just in the neighborhood. This scene shows how reckless and uncaring of human life the world has become. As well as the attempted suicides, Mildred's only thing she does for fun is watch television, on screens, which cover whole walls. She cares more about the screens than she does the welfare of her family or society as a whole. This is shown when Montag asks where Clarisse has been, and she mentions in a casual way, Shes dead.

Hit by a car. I wonder what is going to happen with Sylvia (actor on the television) Montag Brings the book and others like it home, and when he shows it to Mildred, she goes into a state of disbelief, and threatens to call and turn Montag in. As he calms her down, Beatty the fire chief visits the house to tell Montag that he is aware the book is stolen and gives Montag an ultimatum to burn the book in 24 hours or he will come and do it for him. Beatty in the story shows how people can be incredibly smart, yet still be swayed by the governmental propaganda. (Reynolds pp 451 - 452) In two scenes, Beatty and Montag have deep conversations questioning the burning of books, and the pros and cons of doing it, with Beatty always taking the side of the positive of burning the books. Montag then leaves the house after Beatty, and visits a professor that he met in the park, named Faber. Faber is the link to the past world, when school came into session every day and people were excited about learning.

Montag gives the book to Faber and it turns out to be a part of the Bible, which is highly sought after by the underground literary movement. As the novel progresses Faber creates a plan with Montag to persuade society to pursue knowledge, but goes wrong as the plan falls apart, and Montag runs from society, into a large forest hundreds of square miles, and meets a renegade crew of old professors from colleges, led by a Harvard professor named Granger. Granger created a large network of intellectuals that were in hiding, and each of the men memorized parts of a book, and if a war with nuclear results wiped out the cities, these men that are in hiding would be able to recite their novels from memory. Technology appears in the novel in many forms, one of which being the hound used by the firemen. It could be programmed to remember thousands of scents and track down precisely its prey. Made of pure steel and equipped with razor sharp claws and a proboscis needle filled with deadly poison, it mercilessly killed its prey.

This machine was used to track down Montag for the killing of the fire chief Beatty, but Montag went and crossed the river, losing the track of the hound. Bradbury put this and the snake in the novel as symbols of the technology that people in that time. Though with that same technology they could have created useful tools for saving peoples lives or for learning, but they were used for death and moneymaking. These were two of the prime symbols Bradbury wished prove his point of overuse of technology (McLaughlin p. 92 - 94).

When Ray Bradbury published this novel he did not think it would have the same affect that it did on many readers. He was able to open up peoples eyes to the evils of the world and may have a place in the future of preventing these events. By making his books enjoyable but with a serious moral at the end, he taught lessons not able to be taught in classrooms. Bradbury changed the whole genre of science fiction with his ingenious writing, and affected not only science fiction, but literature as well.


Free research essays on topics related to: dandelion wine, ray bradbury, science fiction, martian chronicles, short stories

Research essay sample on Martian Chronicles Ray Bradbury

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