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Rocket Summer
The chapter “Rocket Summer” describes a snowy area being melted by the fire of rockets. It describes total catastrophe as rockets launch off, destroying the pristine and snowy enviroment. It portrays a feeling of dread as it describes what this book considers the apocalypse. It begins the journey to mars. -
Ylla
In chapter 2 of The Martian Chronicles, a Martian named Ylla (aka Mrs. K) starts having dreams of humans, specifically: Mars colonists. Her husband, Mr. K, finds this completely absurd, and tries to put an end to it, but to no avail. This makes their already weak relation quickly deteriorate. -
The Summer Night
In chapter 3 of The Martian Chronicles, a female songstress is singing to an audience at an ampitheatre, when she suddenly and involuntarily starts singing in a language unknown to the Martians: English.The orchestra starts playing unknown music. Throughout the rest of the chapter, people are having strange dreams. -
The Earth Men
The chapter starts out with a captain and his crew of four first discovering Martians. After being ignored time after time, they are sent into a large hall. It was not until nighttime when they found out that they were actually in an insane asylum. The doctor, Mr. Xxx saw the rocket ship, and shot the captain on the grounds that he was a sick creature. He shot the crew as well. He shot himself because he thought he was insane because of the fact that he saw the bodies after they were dead. -
The Taxpayer
This chapter outlines the desire of man to go to Mars in this book. A random citizen of Earth wants to board the expedition to Mars on the ground that Earth is a horrible place and that he is a good citizen and a taxpayer. He is rejected, and the rocket takes off without him. -
The Third Expedition
When the third expedition is sent off to Mars, the crew is surprised to find a surprisingly Earth-like community. The crew finds all of their dead friends and family members, but soon discover that they are being hypnotised to believe that these are their dead family. They are in reality Martians. The crew ends up being murdered by the Martians. -
And the Moon Be Still as Bright
When the 4th expedition comes to Mars, they arrive to find that all of the Martians have died from their own virus: the Chicken Pox. This makes one of the crew members to go insane and go in a killing spree. The captain agrees with the view of the insane crewman, but needs to kill him nonetheless. -
The Settlers
This chapter lists the reasons and motives for people trying to make a new life on Mars. It also references present-day life, propaganda. It also talks an extreme version of “homesickness” when the no longer eager people leave their home planet forever with hopes and dreams for something even better. -
The Green Morning
This chapter describes the first part of terraforming Mars. A man with a motorcycle and some seeds completely changed Mars, even if it was in an impractical and impossible way. In the end, he is known as a hero and celebrates by passing out, only to wake up with even more greenery than before. -
The Locusts
This chapter is titled “The Locusts”. The “locusts” in this chapter are a metaphor for the rocket ships headed to Mars. They are coming in swarms, completely altering everything in their path, just like locusts would. The average humans are starting to settle on Mars for a better standard of living, not for any productive development. -
Night Meeting
This chapter opens the door for some potential Human-Martian interaction. It starts out with an old man ranting about being old to a young guy going to a party. When the guy’s going to the party, he decided to stop. When he does stop, he sees a Martian approach him. After much debate, they both agree that it was just an illusion of time. -
The Shore
This chapter makes two things clear: only Americans are colonizing Mars, and that people from cities and prairies alike are heading to Mars. The fact that only Americans are colonizing Mars shows the selfishness that Bradbury chose to associate the nations of the World with. This also highlights the total state of chaos that the world is in. -
Interim
This chapter shows that the transition from Earth to Mars was almost seamless for the common folk. This is contrary to the “big drastic change” that many writers and producers try to create when they create stories about planetary colonization. It also hints from that humans are taking the same path that they previously did: ruining the planet. -
The Musicians
This chapter shows the daily life of the people on Mars of a greater degree. It also shows Mars paralleling with Earth to a greater degree. It shows the life of the children on Mars. Like on Earth, they are daring each other to rebel, and like on Earth, they get beaten for it by their parents. -
Way In the Middle of the Air
Since this book was written 4 years before the Civil Rights Movement, Bradbury wrote this chapter as if the Civil Rights Movement never happened. It shows what the Deep South might look like if the relation between different races had never changed from 1950 to 2003. In the book, the whites are still suppressive of the blacks until every black person in the South leaves in a rocket ship… -
The Naming of Names
This chapter expanded on what Spender said: “Somehow the mountains will never sound right to us; we'll give them new names, but the old names are there, somewhere in time, and the mountains were shaped and seen under those names. The names we'll give to the canals and mountains and cities will fall like so much water on the back of a mallard. No matter how we touch Mars, we'll never touch it.” It also begins the process of giving Mars political and social structure of Earth. -
Usher II
This chapter is not a squeal as the name implies, but it does bring back various elements from Poe’s old story. It starts out with a man wanting to get revenge on the people who were burning his books. This leads him to build a haunted house to kill them all. -
The Old Ones
This chapter describes the rush of all the elderly people coming to Mars to party! This was written at such a time in the novel, when you thought that everyone has left Earth to go to Mars, that you had to try and see if you could remember elderly people earlier in the book. -
The Martian
In this chapter, we get to see more of the mind powers of the ever elusive Martian. Not long after a family who has lost their son moves to Mars, their dead son shows up at their door. After a few conflicts, the family learns that it was, indeed, a Martian, and goes back to grieving for their dead son. -
The Luggage Store
In this chapter, Mars had just gotten word that war will soon break out on Earth. The owner of the luggage store infers that everyone will leave Mars to go help with the war efforts on Earth, leaving Mars just as soon as they started to colonize it. Mars will be empty before the end of the war. -
The Off Season
In this chapter, a hot dog stand owner is visited Martians. He proceeded to kill several of them, but is gifted with a lot of land. While he is celebrating, his wife looks up at Earth to see it in flames. This troubles the man, as it means no new customers. -
The Watchers
This chapter begins decolonizing Mars. After getting word that Australia was gone, and that Los Angeles and London were both bombed, as well as the people of Earth telling the people of Mars to “come home”, people started heading back to Earth. By morning, almost no one was left on Mars. -
The Silent Towns
Everyone has left Mars except for two people: a man and a woman. One would think this would work out perfectly, but the man does not find her attractive despite her being his only option. This chapter goes more into detail about this, but to say the least, the man is relieved and the woman is angry. -
The Long Years
It has been 20 years since the end of the War on Earth, Hathaway and his family have been living alone, on Mars, since the start of the war. One night, Hathaway say a small rocket. In the morning, the rocket landed containing Wilder and his crew. After Hathaway died that night, Wilder found out that his family has been dead a long time, and that Hathaway built robots to replace them. -
There Will Come Soft Rains
This chapter shows a completely automatic smart house. The only problem is that the house is abandoned, and the people who lived in the house are most likely dead. Suddenly, the house caught fire and was burnt to the ground, and was reduced to nothing but a pile of rubble. -
The Million-Year Picnic
In this chapter, a single family has escaped Earth to go to Mars. Once they arrive and set up, they decide to go on a fishing trip, the man blows up the rocket to prevent going back. After boating down the canal, they decided upon the city that would be their new home. In the end, they saw what was left of the Martian race.
