The Martian Chronicles

Despite the surreal, almost mystic aspects of the technology and alien culture, the story is rooted in the eminently relatable emotion of jealousy. The Martians’ alienness is mitigated by Bradbury’s choice to focus on their domestic lives rather than explicating their culture and era. Ylla and Yll embody familiar domestic roles and emotions via their hope, jealousy, and dissatisfaction. Ylla is mired in reminiscence for the early days of her marriage, evoking a major theme of the work: the sticky trap of nostalgia. Her dissatisfaction, her longing for the excitements of yesterday, prepare her for an acceptance of York, despite his total alienness.

Bradbury’s decision to open the collection with a story focusing on Martians shifts the wider narratives away from the glories of human conquest and the majesty of colonial enterprise—both ideas which Bradbury and his protagonists view with suspicion. Thus, the grandeur of the first landing on Mars, the momentous human moment, is subverted by one of the basest human emotions: jealousy. The reader is asked to discard the distinction between human and Martian immediately, though sympathy with the humans is maintained by keeping the third-person omniscient narration close to Ylla’s perspective, who views York’s arrival as a positive turn of events.

The trope of a foreign interloper stealing what is most precious is also inverted by having the humans function as these interlopers. Bradbury calls into question the imperialism and of settling inhabited territories by positioning the first expeditions of Earth as bumbling failures rather than pacifying expansions of a superior culture.

The Martians are far from a backwards people who will supposedly benefit from imported Earth culture. The Martians are instead quite powerful. Their technology is closer to magic, reflective of their society’s long quest for harmony with their environment and the intermingling of art with science. Yet they are still besieged by personal issues, failings of petty emotion and unwillingness to adapt to change. We are shown that no matter how advanced, they are prey to the same fundamental emotions as us. The fractious and destructive aspects of human/Martian nature is one of Bradbury’s focuses throughout The Martian Chronicles.

The ground rules of Bradbury’s idiosyncratic vision of Mars are established in the story as well: Martian skies are blue, replete with a breathable atmosphere; Martians have telepathic abilities, and Martian women in particular are subject to prophetic dreams; long stone canals stretch across the planet, connecting its cities and towns; Martians often wear masks, even around each other; and their cities, both those occupied and those abandoned eras before, are generally composed of a crystalline material.