The Martian Chronicles: One Story, or Many? Anonymous College

When reading a collection of short stories, there isn’t usually a viable connection made between the various stories in the compilation. Whether it be Mark Twain’s collection of satirical stories, or Edgar Allen’s Poe’s anthology of horror tales, each story is its own; miscellaneous plots, opposing characters, and varying themes. However, upon reading Ray Bradbury’s collection of short stories entitled The Martian Chronicles, one might discover that it is simply not the case. Bradbury’s short stories are of the science fiction genre, and the stories are set from 1999-2026. Instead of each story having an individual storyline, there is a kind of background story that you understand as you read through the compilation. To summarize, the humans of Earth attempt to explore Mars through four different expeditions, but ultimately fail. Eventually, the humans prevail and begin to colonize Mars. After a while, war breaks out back on Earth, and everyone evacuates Mars and returns home to Earth. Only a few are left, and at the end, some humans end up returning to Mars to start life there over. Despite the fact that these are eac separate and individual stories, they are connected by three main things; the use of interchapters and...