In “Zero Hour” Ray Bradbury seems to be attempting to pull one over on his critics. Consider how innocent and guileless little Mink Morris describes to her mother what is really going on with absolutely no attempt at duplicity:
“Martians invading Earth. Well, not exactly Martians. They’re—I don’t know.”
Her mother doesn’t take these words seriously, of course. But then neither did the critics take the words of Ray Bradbury seriously. He was a guy who wrote about Martian invasions and when the story was first published such plots were not exactly deemed the stuff of important literature. Eventually, as certain prejudices and biases against genre fiction were slowly chipped away by readers of that fiction growing up to become critics and scholars, Bradbury’s writing would be taken seriously, but not in 1947.
By having young Mink suggest that the invasion was “not exactly Martians” Bradbury may have been slyly insinuating this story was intended to be interpreted differently. Or maybe not. Maybe there was no intent at all; nevertheless, this story is different and a major character does at first suggest it has to do with those Martians which made Bradbury famous before dismissing it as only a possibility. Take it seriously because whether by design or accident, the story is telling the reader that what is going on here is more than science fiction.
“Zero Hour” is something of a departure for Bradbury and not really quite at home in his overall canon. Take the name Bradbury from it, slap in its place some recognizably “serious” author and suddenly this is a story that would be considered literature. Why? Because the science fiction stuff is all metaphor. “Zero Hour” can be enjoyed as pure imaginative storytelling, but the idea of children “im-pres-sion-able” children being led astray from parent authority hardly needs invaders from outer space to become a real concern.
Mink is correct. Drill is not exactly a Martian, but he is exactly a metaphor. A metaphor for all those creeps of various desires and persuasions who make promises to young, not-very-well supervised children to lure them into a dangerous situation. Drill may be the guy in the van at the playground offering candy to tempt kids into getting close to abduct. But Drill is also the tougher older kid offering a free sample of drugs to start building a solid set of return customers. Drill is even the guy spouting some extreme ideology preying on older teens with outlandish conspiracy theories that make perfect sense to cloistered minds made fearful by lack of clear opportunities.
“Zero Hour” is far from a pointless bit of fluffy generic entertainment. Ray Bradbury—whether he intended to do so or not—managed to pull the carpet out from under the staid academic world. Another story was published in 1947 that has ever since been anthologized and made part of the standard academic curricula: “The Enormous Radio.” That is the story of a couple who receive a radio capable of tuning into the conversations of their neighbors in an apartment building. By any standard conceivable, it is an example of science fiction. However, it was written by a “serious” author named John Cheever and stands out from the rest of his canon in part because it is such a work of fantasy. Nevertheless, it is no more realistic than “Zero Hour.” Both are fine examples of storytelling and both are rightly situated among the best works their respective authors ever created. Strangely, though, Cheever’s thematic messages which are the stuff of “serious literature” was instantly recognized and heralded while Bradbury’s story was dismissed as just another “Martian thing.”
Truly, “Zero Hour” is a work that, among things, revealed critics are often just as oblivious to what is going on around them as parents like Mrs. Morris.
