A Short Response to “There Will Come Soft Rains”

#Dgst101

Hi everyone, my name is Hannah Chester and that’s my face!

For my first response I’ll be reflecting on “There Will Come Soft Rains”. All in all, as a CDS and Theatre major, I’ve spent my life trying to find a deeper meaning to everything I experience, but sometimes I don’t think that’s totally necessary. In reading this, I was trying to pull concepts such as “humans aren’t the cornerstone of life” and “over-industrialization takes away from simple pleasures”, but I really don’t think that’s what this story is about at all. I truly believe it’s just a post-apocalyptic horror-scape in which we’re seeing evolution at work with the last remaining items that had to serve a purpose even without someone there to utilize them. It started out kind of cute actually, but by the end turned almost uncomfortably graphic with phrases such as “…as if a surgeon had torn the skin off to let the red veins and capillaries quiver in the scalded air… the voices wailed. Fire, fire, run, run, like a tragic nursery rhyme, a dozen voices, high, low, like children dying in a forest, alone, alone.” I couldn’t tell you the purpose of the piece or why it makes you emotional at the end for the tragic death of inanimate objects that belong to nobody, but the writing style makes for a creepy and pleasant environment you’re sad to see go under such torturous circumstances.