Situational Irony In Ray Bradbury's There Will Come Soft Rain

Situational Irony is a very important element in literature and can be found in many famous literary works including Ray Bradbury’s There Will Come Soft Rains. Situational Irony adds drama to the story and engages the reader. There are three specific examples of situational irony in There Will Come Soft Rains: The house continues to perform its daily tasks even though no one lives there, the house is destroyed by a tree branch that starts a fire yet it survived a nuclear fallout, and Mrs. McClellan’s favorite poem describes the situation in the story. The first example of situational irony can be seen in the fact that the house continues to do its everyday tasks even though all of the humans that used to live there are dead. This is ironic because the readers know everyone that used to live there is dead, however the house does not know all of the humans that used to live there are dead. The author says in the very beginning of the story,

“In the living room the voice-clock sang, Tick-tock, seven o'clock, time to get up, time to get up, seven o'clock! as if it were afraid that nobody would. The morning house lay empty. The clock ticked on, repeating and repeating its sounds into the emptiness. Seven-nine, breakfast time, seven-nine!” (Bradbury).

This quote is a superb example of situational

The fact that the house continues to do its daily tasks without knowing the residents have perished is the overshadowing example of situational irony in the story. The fact that the house survived a nuclear fallout yet ends up being destroyed by a fire caused by a tree branch falling is a perfect example of situational irony in the story. Finally, the poem used by Ray Bradbury is ironic because it was one of Mrs. McClellan’s favorite poems and it happens to describe the present situation in the story. All of these examples of situational irony engage the reader in a very unique