Analysis Through the Setting

In “August 2026”, the main focus is the setting, a mechanical house running a usual day. It starts off with us in a mechanical house located in a suburban neighborhood that used to be streamed with white houses and picket fences just like the one we are in. the light patter of raindrops is heard o the window sill. The house is waking up, and as programmed is making breakfast. No one eats when the food is ready because no one is there, but the house with its dedication to serving continues on. “The house was an altar with ten thousand attendants, big, small, servicing, attending, in choirs.

But the gods had gone away, and the ritual of the religion continued senselessly, uselessly” (Bradbury 174). The house, even though alone, continues on cleaning and running the daily chores as programmed by its owners long ago. The outside of the house is described as a white house with only one black wall. The black wall is where the explosion must have hit, because we are given the description of five human silhouettes as described in the quote, “in paint a man mowing a lawn. Here, as in a photograph, a woman bent to pick flowers.

Still farther over, their images burned on wood in one titanic instant, a small boy, hands flung into the air; higher up, the image of a thrown ball, and opposite him a girl, hands raised to catch a ball which never came down” (Bradbury 173). At this point we see how the house has been in denial that it is the only one left standing. “Bradbury has anthropomorphized the house with the personality of someone lonely and lost who has found herself suddenly and dramatically isolated from the world” (Austin 1). However it is in denial by continuing with the chores even though the setting describes the house standing alone in a pile of rubble.

The house had been alone for a while and is starting to grow suspicious, and starts to grow insecure. In the quote, “Until this day, how well the house has kept its peace. How carefully it had inquired, ‘Who goes there? What’s the password? ’ and, getting no answer from lonely foxes and whining cats, it had shut up its windows and drawn the shades in an old-maidenly preoccupation with self protection which bordered on mechanical paranoia”, describes the fear slipping into the house (Bradbury 173). The house grows suspicious of its surrounding by shooting down the blinds and locking all windows and doors with every noise heard.

The house becomes bitter with the fact that it is left alone. We see this when the dog returns home weary, dirty and near death. The house upon hearing its voice lets him in, but becomes frustrated with the dogs filth. The house does not provide food or water for the dog, but cleans up the mess he leaves behind. The house left the dog alone to die, and “delicately sensing decay at last, the regiments of mice hummed out as softly as blown gray leaves in an electric wind.

The dog was gone. In the cellar, the incinerator glowed suddenly and a whirl of sparks leaped up the chimney” (Bradbury 174). Perhaps the house had understanding, as well. Maybe it knew that it was alone, that it was without purpose”, we see this when the house chooses a poem to read (Austin 1). The poem talks about mankind perishing and no one being around, describing perfectly the scenario the house is in. Its alone in a world that has been destroyed, but refuses to give up hope in the fact that his people will come back. Soon fear kicks in when the house catches on fire by a falling branch and the house begins to call out “Fire, fire”. “Of all human instincts self-preservation is the most critical.

By giving the house an instinct of survival Bradbury aligns the house more closely with human idiosyncrasies” (Austin 1). The house calls out for help and then tries to save itself, “doors sprang tightly shut, but the windows were broken by the heat and the wind blew and sucked upon the fire. –Scurrying water rats squeaked from the walls, pistoled their water, and ran for more. And the wall sprays let down showers of mechanical rain” (Bradbury 176). The house tries to put out the fire, but in the end is defeated and is brought down to a pile of rubble, just like everything around it.

Only one wall is left standing, we hear it begin to announce a new day, not giving up, still trying to survive. “Bradbury paints a bleak picture: all of our ingenuity, all of our brilliant mechanical creations, all of our scheming, planning, and controlling comes to dust in the end” (Austin 1). We see the world continuing on, even after everything we know has been destroyed. Mankind is now a distant memory in a pile of rubble among a booming world, the house was once the last one standing has also been defeated.