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Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles: Literary Criticism

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In the 1400’s, European nations colonized the Americas and were greatly criticized ever since. Similarly, in The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury shows the humans colonizing Mars and the interactions between the inhabitants of Earth and those of Mars. Through the short stories, Bradbury gives many criticisms about his own society. Bradbury shows the human tendency to be violent and proud when dealing with different cultures in order to criticize human ethnocentrism. Bradbury criticizes the human instinct to be violent when facing an unfamiliar culture. In The Martian Chronicles, when the martians and humans meet each other, they are portrayed as beings who want to kill anything that contradicts their beliefs. For instance, in “The Earth Men,” …show more content…

Xxx, said, ‘“Your insanity is beautifully complete,”’(Bradbury 29) to the crew, which is devaluing the humans because the martian is calling the crew insane people just because he can’t recognize the way they think at all. In fact, the martians had a tradition of calling everyone who was different from them “insane”. Then, the psychologist “took out a gun” and said, ‘“incurable, of course . . . You will be happier dead.”’(Bradbury 29) and then he shoots the humans. This illustrates the fact that martians want to get rid of anything they are not used to and that they put no effort to learn about it and understand it. They do not want change in their community so they get rid of anything that can change their world. Also, the fact that this psychologist had a …show more content…

In The Martian Chronicles, the martians are valued more than the humans, and the White Americans are described as being superior over the African Americans, which leads to oppression. For instance, in “The Earth Men,” Captain Wilder goes to the Ttt’s house and says, ‘“We are from Earth”’(Bradbury 16), but Ms. Ttt “slammed the door”(Bradbury 17) on him. So, Captain Wilder knocked once again and said, ‘“We’re from Earth!”’(Bradbury 17) with more emphasis, yet he was rejected again. Captain Wilder’s repetition of saying that he is from Earth implies that he expects to get special treatment from the Martians if he tells them that he is from Earth because he thinks they all know that it is extremely difficult to get to Mars from Earth so he has achieved a great feat. This shows that he is looking down on the Martian race because he believes the Martians will throw him a party, worship him, and praise him. However, this is not the case and instead, he is ignored by Ms Ttt. These actions are similar to what the Spanish Conquistadors experienced. When the Spanish Conquistadors first entered America, they expected to be greeted as these amazing beings, but they were ignored as well. This idea of expectation shown through the humans shows how prideful they are, wanting to be superior and be praised. In addition, Ms. Ttt’s indifference to

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