Transcript The Martian Chronicles

The Martian Chronicles
Ray Bradbury
Historical context
& thematic overview
The Cold War 1945-1963
• During World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union fought
together as allies against the Axis powers. However, the relationship
between the two nations was a tense one.
• Americans had long been wary of Soviet communism and concerned
about Russian leader Joseph Stalin’s tyrannical, blood-thirsty rule of
his own country. For their part, the Soviets resented the Americans’
decades-long refusal to treat the USSR as a legitimate part of the
international community as well as their delayed entry into World
War II, which resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of Russians.
• After the war ended, these grievances ripened into an overwhelming
sense of mutual distrust and enmity. Postwar Soviet expansionism
in Eastern Europe fueled many Americans’ fears of a Russian plan to
control the world. Meanwhile, the USSR came to resent what they
perceived as American officials’ bellicose rhetoric, arms buildup and
interventionist approach to international relations.
• In such a hostile atmosphere, no single party was entirely to blame
for the Cold War; in fact, some historians believe it was inevitable.
The Cold War (1945-1963)
• The Soviet Union wanted to spread Communism
in Eastern Europe and create a "buffer zone" of
friendly governments as defense against any
attacks, whether by the Capitalists or by
Germany.
• In 1946, with Eastern Europe under Soviet
control and influence, Europe was divided into a
West (western democracies and the United
States) bloc and East (Soviet Union and Soviet
occupied territory) bloc. An "Iron Curtain"
separated Europe.
Harry Truman
• In 1947, President Truman (1884-1972) declared before
Congress that “It must be the policy of the United States
to support free peoples who are resisting attempted
subjugation…by outside pressures.”
• In 1950, a National Security Council Report known as
NSC–68 echoed Truman’s recommendation that the
country use military force to "contain" communist
expansionism anywhere it seemed to be occurring.
– To that end, the report called for a four-fold increase in defense
spending.
– Thus began a deadly “arms race”
The Arms Race
• 1949 USSE tests an atomic bomb
• Truman responds by announcing the
development of an even more destructive
bomb the hydrogen bomb, or “super
bomb”
– Stalin follows suit
Eniwetok
• The first H-bomb test, in the Eniwetok atoll in
the Marshall Islands, showed just how fearsome
the nuclear age could be.
• It created a 25-square-mile fireball that
vaporized an island, blew a huge hole in the
ocean floor and had the power to destroy half of
Manhattan.
• Subsequent American and Soviet tests spewed
poisonous radioactive waste into the
atmosphere.
Psychological toll
• The ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation
had a great impact on American domestic life.
• People built bomb shelters in their backyards,
practiced attack drills in schools and other
public places, and the 1950s and 1960s saw an
epidemic of popular films that horrified
moviegoers with depictions of nuclear
devastation and mutant creatures.
• In these and other ways, the Cold War was a
constant presence in Americans’ everyday lives.
The Red Scare
• Beginning in 1947, the House Un-American
Activities Committee (HUAC) brought the Cold
War home in another way. The committee began
a series of hearings designed to show that
communist subversion in the United States was
alive and well.
• As this anticommunist hysteria spread
throughout the 1950s, liberal college professors,
[movie industry professional, federal employees,
among others] lost their jobs, people were asked
to testify against colleagues and "loyalty oaths"
became commonplace.
The Martian
Chronicles
Ray
Bradbury
Overview
• In The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury (b. 1920)
imagines the first attempts by people from Earth to
conquer and colonize Mars, the Martian resistance
through telepathy, the eventual conquest and
colonization, and the effects of a nuclear war on Earth on
the settlers on Mars.
• This collection of short stories built around the theme of
Earth's colonization of Mars provides a critique of
imperialism, conquest, environmental degradation,
racism, and other aspects negatively associated with the
"Frontier" mythology.
– Even while it challenges many Cold War ideologies, it also
reflects the prevailing anxieties of America in the early 1950s,
including fear of nuclear attack and reactions against racism.
Overview cont’d
• One striking feature of many of these stories is the progressive
political values which they embrace.
• Written during the height of the Cold War anti-Communist
hysteria, they criticize imperialism, racism, environmental
pollution, censorship, and the nuclear arms race.
• Several SF writers critiqued smug assumptions about the
superiority of American values during that period.
• That such a volume could become the single most widely-read
SF book during the fifties is a tribute to the charm of
Bradbury's style, a compound of sentimental nostalgia,
idealism, and above all delight in the pleasures of the senses.
– Note how often colors, textures, smells, and sounds are used in
these stories to bring a scene to life.