Based on my reading of “There Will Come Soft Rain”, I can conclude that the setting of the story is in both a place of vast technological advancements, & what seems to be a post apocalyptic time. The human race and society has seemed to vanished. Leaving behind nothing but ” a house standing alone in a city of rubble and ashes”(pg.1). Even though everything around the house is riddled with death the house is surprisingly still very much so alive.The house seemed to be programmed to act out hourly tasks without the intervention of human interaction. “In the kitchen the breakfast stove gave a hissing sigh and ejected from its warm interioreight pieces of perfectly browned toast, eight eggs sunnyside up, sixteen slices of bacon, twocoffees, and two cool glasses of milk.”(pg.2).The house is clearly intelligent enough to know when and how to preform tasks to the point were it becomes alive.”The house was an altar with ten thousand attendants, big, small, servicing, attending, inchoirs. But the gods had gone away, and the ritual of the religion continued senselessly, uselessly.”(pg.2) Despite being technologically advances, the house still  hasn’t come to the realization that the occupants of the home are gone, turned into nothing more than shadowy silhouettes.

Although the house doesn’t seem to realize its providing for people that don’t exist.It seems to be aware of the state of destruction the world in in around it.”It had shut up its windows and drawn shades in an old maidenly preoccupation with self-protectionwhich bordered on a mechanical paranoia.It quivered at each sound, the house did. If a sparrow brushed a window, the shadesnapped up. The bird, startled, flew off! No, not even a bird must touch the house!”(pg.2). The house appears as if its a  living entity who constantly cleans itself and tries to protect itself. So when the dog was allowed in it was obviously because it was special. The dog tracked into the house lots of mud, that the “mice angrily cleaved “(pg.2) and seemed to be looking for the family that once lived there, the McCellans. the dog searched and searched until it dies.

The time came for the house to recite a poem for MRS. McCellans and the poem reviewed a lot of what was going on in their present  present :

“And not one will know of the war, not one”(pg3): This line can be compared to the house’s actions. Actions that seem to prove it was aware of the war .

“Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,if mankind perished utterly”(pg3): In this story I assume that mankind has perished, leaving the house behind . And the house doesn’t seem to mind or could even care less that they were gone. It just continued its daily tasks as normal