Substantive: The Martian Chronicles

Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles isn’t like anything we’ve read so far in the semester. It is as much poetry as it is science fiction. Whether or not you can actually qualify it in the same genre as something like “Star Trek” would be an intellectual endeavor. The first word that comes to my mind upon finishing The Martian Chronicles is lyrical. The book reads like a funeral dirge for humanity; at no point do you feel hope for our species, there is no sense of direction or conquest. The Martian Chronicles offers no positive feelings about what humanity has done. It is a sad book about humanity, and although short, speaks volumes about the kind of world we’ve made for ourselves.

Within the context of the “end of humanity” which Bradbury lies out is the encounters with the Martians. The Martians are incredibly ethereal, with bronze skin and golden eyes. Their lifestyle is only really revealed in the first chapters of the book, described to be a life more along the lines of a world of Greek-like passiveness, with individuals who cherish philosophy and the arts. The Martians also have the gift of telepathy and projection, far removed from what humans on Mars actually understand (although characters throughout the book stumble upon this almost aspect of the Martians). The use of telepathy by the Martians is probably the most horrifying aspect of the book. In no way does humanity stand a chance against the Martians, as minds are always being manipulated. It forces the characters, and the reader, to ask just what’s real around them. Telepathy even seems to be the downfall of the Martians themselves - with scores seeming to go insane with the notion that they’re “from Earth”, leading them to produce elaborate psychotic projections. While the Martians are physically deceptively human, their minds and culture are incredibly alien.

This being my first read-through of The Martian Chronicles, I wasn’t exactly expecting Bradbury’s very philosophical approach to humanity and aliens. In many ways, I suspect that Bradbury never intended to write a book about humanity’s contact with Martians. The book doesn’t even resemble our previous books; there seemingly hardly any contact between humans and Martians, and the humans never act in direct ways to attempt to conquer the Martians. Yet, in a most definite sense, humanity does conquer Mars, sending rocket after rocket to the red planet. The first rockets sent were the most poignant examples of just how incompatible our two species were. The narrative only hints at the fate of the first rocket, and shows us in explicit details the death of the second expedition, and in even greater detail the fate of the third. In each case, the death of the humans was due to the effects of the telepathy. The second case was definitely more clear-cut than the third, where in the third we could only guess if the Martians actually had any foul intentions. But by the fourth expedition, Mars was no longer the planet of the Martians, humanity had begun colonization, and the Martians retreated completely.

So, what does Bradbury’s story tell us about humanity and the other? Is Bradbury’s “other” so beyond our comprehension that the ruins of their civilization just mean nothing to us? It’s had to comprehend a humanity quite like Bradbury’s, with a complete lack of fear and disregard for aliens. Bradbury’s humanity didn’t even give much of an attempt to understand Martian society (as predicted by Spender). Perhaps Bradbury’s point shines through in the final story of his book. As one of the last families of humanity makes its new home on Mars, they stare down into the pool, recognizing that they now are the Martians. And Earth’s civilization, too, has died because of its actions. Perhaps Martians and humans are more similar than we might imagine.