Stone Cold Death In Ray Bradbury's The October Country

From the strange collection of disturbing short stories in Ray Bradbury’s The October Country, “The Emissary” continues to spook the reader with it’s strange characters. In these short stories Bradbury CONTINUOUSLY repeats the themes. The most eye catching theme in “The Emissary” is a stone cold death shown through plot, symbols, and character.

Bradbury intrigues the reader with his ability to show a stone cold death through plot in “The Emissary”. Martin, the twelve year old protagonist, begins the story deathly ill in bed. His pet dog, Dog, scours the town in search of people and items to bring back to Martin’s room. Dog is Martin's representative, his contact to the world.The cemetery is one of the places Dog goes to everyday, revealing the stone cold death theme in the story. “Dead, said his mother, yes, dead killed in an auto accident a mile out of town,” (Bradbury 007). Miss Haight had died. The wonderful, joyful, former teacher of Martin was no more. Miss Haight had been the only one who could read Dog better than Martin, she was the other half of Dog. She died a

In the story the darkness that comes is represented by the symbols throughout the stories. “Martin sank deeper, yet deeper, in white marble layers of bed, motionless, listening, always listening,”(Bradbury 109). Martin is in his death bed. The ‘white marble layers’ represent his grave. He is laying in his grave! The deeper he goes the harder it is to come back, he is leaving his world and entering another. “The world was a picture under glass, untouchable. The world was dead,”(Bradbury 56). Without dog, Martin is dead. He is motionless and cold. He can’t survive well enough without Dog bringing in the world. Both symbols prove the theme of a stone cold death in the story. The symbols in “The Emissary,” uncover the theme of a stone cold death well, but the peculiar characters do just the