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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.
Short Answer Questions
1. When the story ends, what is left standing?
2. What happens at ten-fifteen?
3. What does the dog do once it gets inside the house?
4. What is the image of the west wall meant to allude to?
5. When the fire travels outside and up the sides of the house, it is described as what?
Short Essay Questions
1. What is ironic about Bradbury's use of rain in this story?
2. Explain the inclusion of the Sara Teasdale poem in this story.
3. The garbage disposal in the kitchen is referred to as a "metal throat." What techniques are at use here, and what is their purpose?
4. What is the intended effect of juxtaposing the images of the silhouettes with the description of the house's continued paranoia about intruders?
5. In what way is the house's "speech" like nursery rhymes, and what is the purpose of this choice?
6. Explain how the pun in the line "The morning house lay empty" explains why the house is empty and foreshadows the story's later revelation of the family's fate.
7. How does Bradbury use the dates on which the story takes place as a form of foreshadowing?
8. Explain what is ironic about the rain in the nursery scenery.
9. Explain the significance of the nursery decor.
10. What is the difference between the focus of Teasdale's poem and the focus of Bradbury's short story?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
The setting of the short story "There Will Come Soft Rains" is meant to be a middle-class home in a city near San Francisco, California. Most critics agree that Bradbury intended this to appeal to his audience as a sort of "universal" setting that would bring home to his audience that the devastating effects of nuclear war can happen very suddenly to anyone--not just soldiers, not just people in "other" countries. What is your opinion of this choice? Do you think that it accomplishes its intended purpose? Do you think that this purpose is worthwhile? Be sure to explain your reasoning.
Essay Topic 2
The tone of "There Will Come Soft Rains" is overwhelmingly ironic. But is that the intended mood? Remember that "tone" is the narrator's attitude, while "mood" has to do with the reader's feelings. What feelings do you think that this story is intended to create in the reader, and what textual evidence supports your ideas?
Essay Topic 3
Look again at the passage that begins with "The house was an altar with ten thousand attendants." What metaphor is being developed in this passage, and what is its meaning?
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This section contains 1,092 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) |
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