August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950)  is written by Ray Bradbury. This  short story is about a computer-automated house that routinely does daily tasks for for family. However, there is no family occupying the house or  responses towards these daily routines . So in the end of the story the house accidentally sets itself on fire , being almost destroyed. However, there is an ironic doom that at the end of the story.

In the beginning of the story , I read that  house so intuitive or so ready and prepared, to do these tasks for this family. However,  we learn that the family died by incineration shown by there silhouette’s on the side of the wall on there house. In addition, the family most likely died by a nuclear  bomb when the author gave an indication that the city , miles away, had radioactive glow at night.  After this,  the whole house does it’s daily rituals at a timely matter throughout the whole day  , till the house accidentally sets ablaze . The irony to this that the house is so well equipped to serve their masters or “gods” Bradbury once said, that it wasn’t prepared to save itself  from the fire, thus to its ultimate doom.

As I also mentioned in the previous paragraph, Bradbury said the family was like “gods’ to the  house. We all know that humans create machines, so that it can better the lives of humans and make life much easier. In addition , Bradbury said  that the house continues with the “ritual of religion … senselessly, uselessly.”  The house even responded to  the outside  natural world with minor security precautions  like birds , “lonely foxes” , ” whining cats” , and a dog . The dog entered the house and it’s the only time the house granted permission for the dog to enter  suggesting it’s the family’s pet. The poor dog was frail, suggesting it was dying of starvation  , thus leading to its death. The irony of this  part of the story is the house is so ready to serve there masters  with anything , but has failed to save the dog from its inevitable doom , as it’s the only living thing in the house and probably the closest thing the family. Thus, the dog could have much been consider as equal as its human masters and been saved if it was feed.

On the whole , some time in the story  the house randomly plays a poem aloud for  Mrs.McClellan, who presumably is the wife of the unnamed husband  and mother of her two unnamed  children. The poem describes how nature itself is unaffected by the human extinction and that no one knows how it happen. This poem is in comparison with the house itself. The house is greatly unaffected by the outside world and doesn’t know what happened . So its only duty , which it is automatically meant to do, is to perform the daily tasks for the family ceaselessly, unless if the family was alive they could have shut the house down itself. And  because the house was unaffected by the outside world and as the house being a machine itself , was so intuitive to serve and do its daily task , it eventually lead it self to its own doom, which is quite ironic that it couldn’t save itself.