Progressive Insanity In Ray Bradbury's The Long Rain

In The Long Rain by Ray Bradbury, the progressive insanity of the crew is a central theme of the short story. In addition, Pickard and Simmons demonstrate how the constant rain has led to them becoming insane; furthermore, the destroyed Sun Dome leaves Pickard and Simmons more mentally broken than before. First of all, Pickard shows how the rain makes him more agitated, and it slowly makes him more insane. Furthermore, Pickard expresses how the rain has made him insane by making him unable to sleep; in addition, when he tries to sleep in the rain he ends up disoriented from the amount of water he ingested. “He (Pickard) floundered and struck something else and knew that it was Simmons, standing up in the rain, sneezing moisture, coughing, and

He fired off his gun six times at the night sky.”(Bradbury In the line “He floundered” Pickard shows how the water has made him disoriented and confused, and this leads to him accidentally striking Simmons. Moreover, by saying ‘stop it, stop it,’ Pickard is conveying the intense discomfort he was in with all the different things crawling and sliding on his skin. Earlier in the story, Pickard talks about how he wishes the rain wouldn’t hit his head, and he says it reminded him of when a bully would pinch him repeatedly. Later in the story, Simmons, realizing that Pickard was in immense discomfort, decides to euthanize him by shooting and killing him. In conclusion, this shows how despite how bad the circumstances get, quitting ends in a worse result than just pushing through the pain. First, Simmons' insanity is revealed when he decides to aim a gun at the lieutenant but then shoots it up into the air several times. Moreover, Simmons decides that he can not bear to go through this journey anymore and tells the lieutenant, that he should go on without him:“ He turned and called back once, but Simmons was only sitting there with the gun in his hands, waiting for him to get out of