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Rocket Summer
In a very short, beginning excerpt to The Martian Chornicles a scene is set in Ohio on a cold winter day. Members of the community are out and about in wearing "wool" and "bear disguises" when suddenly a rocket comes down from the sky, bringing the heat of summer along with it. In this "brief moment" the air warms and icicles melt leaving people to look in awe at the reddned sky in which the rocket came from. -
Ylla
The first martians of the chronicles are introduced as creatures similar to humans, but with "yellow coin eyes" and telepathic abilities. The female character, Ylla, has a "dream" about a man coming down from the sky in a rocketship. This man that she sees is nothing like anyone she has ever seen before, but she is intrigued by him. However, this does not go over well with her husband. After he hears of her visions, he sets out to "hunt" and to kill this man. -
The Summer Night
An audience of martians are gathered to hear a woman sing, but when she begins to sing in a language they have never heard before they become confused. The musicians start to play "strange music" from their golden horns and the children recite a foriegn rhyme, All of them become upset as an unsettling mood falls on the community because they could sense "some terrible" about to happen due to their telepathic abilities. -
The Earth Men
When four men from Earth men on Mars land they expect to be celebrated for their accomplishment, but the martians do not take them seriously. As they bounce around to different martian men trying to find some kind of recongnition, they end up being put in an insane asylum. The martians believe that anyone who claims they are from a different planet is hallucinating and therefore must be "cured" or put away with. Mr. Xxx ends up killing the captain and himself because he doesn't believe them. -
The Taxpayer
A man from Ohio yelled and begged through the wire fence blocking the rocket ship that was about to take off on the third expedtition. He claimed he wanted to go to Mars, and deserved to just like anyone else. This man wanted to leave his home planet, Earth, because the ominous threat of an "atom war." But he ended up being dragged away while the rocket was sent off without him. -
The Third Expeditition
Sixteen men are sent up for a third attempt to reach Mars, but when they get there reality is no where to be found. They all become tricked, even the captain, by the illusion the Martians have created with their telepathic abilites. The men believe they are seeing their loved ones from the past, and become vunerable to their human emotions. But unfortunately, this becomes their fatal flaw because the Martains end up massacring and burying each one of them. -
And The Moon Be Still as Bright
New men have landed on Mars, and find that all the cities have died off from the spread of chicken pox. A few of men want to celebrate their great accomplishment, but Spender does not. He becomes angered by all the destruction he forsees that humans will do to the planet. Later, Spender wanders off and becomes brainwashed against his own crew. He ends up shooting four of them, leaving the rest to go after him. The captain ruefully shoots Spender in the chest, keeping him from killing again. -
The Settlers
Men from Earth are coming from Mars to get away from all of the "bad wives or bad jobs or bad towns." They did not have in common the the dream to explore Mars, but what they did share was a diease called "Lonliness," where a man is sad to see his town grow so large in population that he becomes lost. These men came to Mars more so for themselves, than to make a new discovery for the people waiting back home. But inevitably, just as town populations gorw, so will the human population on Mars. -
The Green Morning
One crew member named Benjamin Discroll finds that the air on Mars is thin and unable to provide enough oxygen for humans to comfortably breathe. So, he formulates a plan to plant many tree in order to combat this problem. As he is sleeping one night, he feels rain start to come down and he becomes overjoyed, After a long hot period of time, he wakes up to find thousands of trees producing waves of oxygen that will further support human life. -
Locusts
In this short chronicle, a scene is described in which "steel-tooth carnivores" come down in their rockets and take over Mars. By looking at the humans' actions from a different point of view, it shows how disruptive they are. They are burning and changing the environment that has been a peaceful place for thousands of years, and it seems a increidbly disrespectful. -
Night Meeting
A man named Tomas Gomez seems to be living on Mars for a bit of time. As he is driving down one of the quiet Mars highways in his truck, a Martain flys over to him. At first the two cannot understand each other becuase of their different languages, but through the use of telepathy the Martian learns English. The two learn that the cannot physically touch each other, which then leads them to find out that they also see two completely different worlds, but they do not know which is the past. -
The Shore
Men and women are coming to Mars and changing the land to resemble their home planet Earth, and more specifically America. The first two groups came from America and began to build houses with "windows" and "lights." As more and more of Americans come to Mars, the more they change it to their liking. A parallel can be drawn between this event and the Enligh expedition to the Americas in the 1700s. -
The Fire Balloons
In this chronicle, a new form of Martains is discovered when three priests land on Mars to build a new church. These Martians are described as "blue light" forms that seem as if they have souls, but do not take a human form. Father Peregine is passionate about bringing these beings to God, meanwhile Father Stone is more skeptical. When Peregine proves that the blue lights can make moral decisions, they build a church for them, but only to find that they do not want or need it. -
Interim
Americans are settling into Mars as they build churches with "stained-glass" windows and little towns on the edge of "stone canals.". The development of civilization is becoming more and more real as the population grows. Mars is beginning to resemble Earth as the people bring over all their own supplies such as redwood from California. -
The Musicians
As the population grows on Mars, a more Earth-like setting becomes evident. Children run and play, discovering all of the unknown on the planet that none have been on before. ¨Firemen" are designated the task to clean out dead Martain bodies left behind in desolate cities and burn them so that they can have a fresh start. In a way, it seems almost inhumane that one spiecces has come in to take over a world that is not theirs. -
The Wilderness
For the first time, Bradbury introduces two main characters that are female. These women are seen preparing to leave and travel to Mars so that they can start their new lives. One of them, Loeonora, is going to see her fiance. He has sent her a picture of the house that they will live in that closely resembles their house on Earth. As the women prepare for their departure, Leonora tries to get in touch with Will, but the only word she hears is ¨love.¨ This word acts as a reassurance to her. -
The Naming of Names
As the population grows on Mars, lives are growing and libraries are being built. Cities, towns, and mountains are all being named by the Earth people, many of them alluding to expeditions and events in the previous chronicles. Rules and instructions are starting to be set as Mars is being developed into a second verision of Earth. -
Usher II
A man named Stendahl has a love for literature, but in this day books and films are banded according to laws back on Earth. TO escape these rules, he builds a bulidin full of them. When a man named Garrett comes to tell him that his house will have to be burned down, he kills him and replaces him with a robot. Then when he has a dinner party, Stedahl eplaces them all with robots, tricking Garrett and then locks him in a cellar, which alludes to Poe's tale. -
The Old Ones
The last people to make the trip to Mars are the elderly as they come to live out the rest of their lives in peace. Bradbury describes them as "apricot people" and "dry and crackling," -
The Martian
When a couple sees a figure that seems to look like their dead son Tom, they become hesitant but their happiness overpowers their logic to realize that it is not really him. Then when they go into town, Tom becomes lost. Lafarge, the father, realizes that he has changed into another being. The Martian is subject to the emotions of all the people near him. His telepathic ability allows them so see their loved ones, but they do not realize that it is actually killing by overwhelming him. -
The Luggage Store
Father Peregine, a returning character, is talking with the proprietor about the rumor of Earth becoming a warzone. They both comtimlate the idea of whether or not people will return to help solve the conflict. The proprietor believes he will stay on Mars due to his old age, but Father seems to believe otherwise. He seems to think that no one will be able to hide from the destruction about to take place on their home planet. -
The Off Season
Another returning character, Sam Parkhill has built a hto dog stand in preparation for the burst in population he is expecting on Mars. But when a martian comes, he views him as a threat and shoots him. Parkhill is then chased down by a fleet of martians only to find that they really just wanted to give him ownership of half of Mars and want to tell him a warning, but he will not listen. Then all of the sudden Earth explodes into a firey ball, diminishing any hope Parkhill has. -
The Watchers
Now that Earth is destoyed, the people are not sure what to do. They stand in silence on their porches experiencing the shock of what has happened. Some wish to contact their loved ones in hope that they survived the atomic war, but hope is sparse. A morse code from Earth signals to them "COME HOME," but safety is a concern for these humans as they could be last of their spieces. -
The Silent Towns
One man named Walter is left on Mars by himself because the rest of the population left to go back to Earth and seek out what is left of the ruins. He walks around going a bit crazy, when he hears a phone ring. But, no one is on the line. He is determined to find someone, so he calls until a woman named Gieneve answers and he seeks her out. But he comes to find that even though she is the last woman on Mars, he is repulsed by her. -
The Long Years
After twenty years of solitude on Mars with his family, Hathaway finally sees a flame in the sky that is a sign that a rocket is coming. The family prepares for the arrival of Captain Wilder and his crew. They are plesantly surprised to see them, but the soon realize that something is amiss. The wife and children are actually robots that Hathaway built to keep himself from going insane from lonliness. When he passes away, his "wife" does not feel sadness because Hathaway did not want her to. -
There Will Come Soft Rains
A lonely house goes through the daily routine of cooking and cleaning for its human that no longer exists. The surrounding town is omnious as there is no one living in it, but there are still dogs roaming around and sprinklers watering the grass. The Earth is dead due to the muderous effect of the war. It left nobody, or at least nobody that is seen in this chronicle. The mysterious and unsettling nature of this passage creates a wonder of what will come of all that was left behind. -
The Million-Year Picnic
William Thomas has saved a hidden rocket on Earth for years, so that he and his family could escape the destruction. When they come to Mars, the oldest son Timothy is confused as to what is going on. But, soon he realizes that they will never return home because Mars is their new home. However, a postive aspet of this chronicle is the fact that it gives off hope. The family has a chance to begin again with a fresh start, away from all that was destroyed.
