the illustrated man essay

• The Illustrated Man Summary

by Ray Bradbury

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Written by Matt Young

The eighteen short stories in The Illustrated Man are tied together with an overarching narrative, that of the "illustrated man" himself. He is an ex-circus performer who received full-body tattoos from a mysterious old woman, changing his life. These tattoos seem to be living: they tell stories and constantly change, weaving imaginative stories that celebrate and condemn. At the end, the narrator grows frightened of these tattoos, which seem to foretell his own death.

"The Veldt"

One of Bradbury's most famous and terrifying stories, "The Veldt" portrays a family in the future who have installed a virtual reality playroom for the children of the house, the walls of which can portray any environment they might wish. The children, concerningly, always have it turned to a scene of the African veldt, where lions feast on prey. When their parents, advised by a psychologist, decide to turn the room off, the children at first lash out in outrage, then calmly acquiesce. It is implied that they kill their parents after locking them into the nursery before it is turned off.

"Kaleidoscope"

Members of a crew in space speak and ponder the meaning of life as they drift in opposite directions to certain death after a critical malfunction in their ship. The story is told in sparse, dissociative prose, and the main astronaut, Hollis, contemplates his own life, hoping it will have made some kind of difference.

"The Other Foot"

The inhabitants of Mars, all of whom are African-American, receive intelligence that white men will be arriving at their civilization. They embark on a short-lived vendetta campaign in preparation, preparing to treat the white men like they themselves were treated under the Jim Crow laws. When the others, arrive, however, they all find solidarity in shared experience and realize their common humanity, and the signs and separations are quickly torn down.

"The Highway"

A Mexican farmer living by the highway meets people fleeing from what they call the "atom war," crying that it is the end of the world. The farmer goes back to his business once they leave, wondering what they meant by "the world."

A crew exploring space comes across a planet where all the inhabitants are joyful. They discover that this is due to the influence of a single Man who left just before they arrived, whose identity as Jesus is thinly veiled. Martin, the lieutenant, chooses to stay on the planet and embrace this religion, while Captain Hart embarks on a journey to chase this Man down, only to find that he is always one step behind Him.

"The Long Rain"

One of the most adapted works in the collection, "The Long Rain" is a story about hope in a depressing world. It concerns a party of astronauts on Venus, where the "Sun Domes" are the only respite from the perpetual, heavy rain. On their quest to find a Sun Dome, all but one of the astronauts is killed or commits suicide, with only one astronaut surviving to find a functional Sun Dome.

"The Rocket Man"

This story is notable in the collection for being told from a first-person POV, that of the son of a "rocket man," a man who takes a rocket for lucrative interplanetary journeys. This job is a stressful one, and the father is conflicted: he wants to stay with his family, but the job has given him a restlessness and a desire to see the universe. He takes one last mission and is killed when his spaceship falls into the Sun.

"The Fire Balloons"

One of the stories that is sometimes included in both The Illustrated Man and The Martian Chronicles , "The Fire Balloons" concerns priests from Earth who travel to Mars in order to evangelize the native Martians. They discover that these Martians are essentially just giant balloons made of fire without any conscious will to sin.

"The Last Night of the World"

This short story follows a husband and wife as they go about their day as normal despite learning that the world is probably going to end that night. It celebrates the joys of everyday life while implying the powerlessness of humans to change destiny.

"The Exiles"

One of the strangest of Bradbury's stories, "The Exiles" is the tale of horror writers such as Edgar Allen Poe and H.P. Lovecraft whose works have been banned on earth, and who are now living as strangely powerful beings on Mars. When a ship of humans is en route to Mars, these authors exact their revenge, but they are killed when the captain burns the last remaining copies of their books.

"No Particular Night or Morning"

A depressing story about the tragic dangers of solipsism, "No Particular Night or Morning" follows the interactions of two astronauts aboard a lonely spacecraft. One of them, Hitchcock, adopts a solipsistic worldview, believing that his interaction with something is the only time it actually exists, before voluntarily jettisoning himself from the spacecraft and dying in the cold darkness of space.

"The Fox and the Forest"

In order to escape a terrible, almost post-apocalyptic future, a couple uses time travel to escape to Mexico in the 1930s, where they hope to live peacefully and unobserved. However, other time travelers (authorities of some kind) have discovered them and forcibly remove them back to their own time after a struggle.

"The Visitor"

A young man with telepathic abilities lands on Mars, a rusty wasteland for exiles that causes lung diseases and inflicts ceaseless pain on its inhabitants. The exiles on Mars fight over Mark (the young man) since he has the ability to give them the sensation of transporting to another time and place, as well as easing their pain. In the fight, Mark is shot and killed, and the opportunity is lost.

"The Concrete Mixer"

Ettil Vrye, a Martian, is conscripted into the army that will invade Earth. On Earth, however, he comes to believe that the humans are peaceful and good-hearted. Upon further interaction, however, he realizes that the humans are so corrupted that they are going to attempt to exploit the Martians to make more money by selling them fads and other fashionable things. Ettil tries to escape, but the story ends with a car full of teenagers bearing down on him.

"Marionettes, Inc."

A man buys a "marionette" (robotic clone) of himself, but the robot falls in love with his wife and locks the man in the box the robot came in. A frightening story about the dangers of A.I. and the avoidance of responsibility.

Another of Bradbury's most terrifying works, "The City" follows a living, thinking city on Mars that lures, traps, and kills human soldiers in horrible ways before turning them into "golden bombs of disease culture" and planning to drop them on Earth as revenge.

" Zero Hour "

A scary story about an alien invasion that occurs after the aliens make contact with human children. Their parents think "zero hour" is just a game, but when it comes around, their children are taken over by aliens, and the invasion of Earth begins.

"The Rocket"

One of the only uplifting stories in this collection, "The Rocket" is the story of a man who saves up money to send one of his family members through space. They can't decide who to send, though, so instead he uses the money to build his own rocket that simulates a ride through space, giving his children the illusion that they've been through space and creating a shared bonding experience for his family.

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The Illustrated Man Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Illustrated Man is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

(Kaleidoscope) What did the astronauts fail to do which would have saved them from falling haphazardly through space?

Do you have a link to the full text of this story? I have been unable to locate one.

How does Hollis stop one of the screaming astronauts

Please provide the author of this book.

why is Hollis always jealous of Lespere

Who is the author of this book?

Study Guide for The Illustrated Man

The Illustrated Man study guide contains a biography of Ray Bradbury, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About The Illustrated Man
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The Illustrated Man

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Summary and Study Guide

First published in 1951, The Illustrated Man is a collection of 18 short stories of speculative fiction by one of the preeminent American writers of the 20th and 21st centuries: Ray Bradbury . It includes some of his most famous short stories, including “ The Veldt ” and “ Marionettes , Inc.” While the volume received mixed reviews on release, it was nominated for the International Fantasy Award in 1952 and is now widely considered to be a highlight of Bradbury’s career. Several of the stories have been adapted for film, radio, and television over the years, some by Bradbury himself. This guide refers to the Harper Collins e-book edition.

The collection is named after one of its characters, the Illustrated Man, a carnival worker whose supernatural tattoos represent each of the 18 stories. This acts as a framing device for the work. The Prologue, Epilogue, and one other story, “The Rocket Man,” are written in first-person voice , but the rest are written in third person. All the stories are told in the past tense. Bradbury tends to focalize his stories through the perspective of a single character, though the reliability of his narrators shifts from chapter to chapter.

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Plot Summary

In “The Veldt,” children raised by a virtual reality nursery turn on their parents after being denied their favorite simulation: an African savannah filled with lions. Astronauts tumble helplessly through space, connected only by long-distance radio, in “Kaleidoscope.” In “The Other Foot,” black colonists on Mars must decide whether to accept white refugees from Earth.

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“The Highway” also focuses on a minority group: a husband and wife south of the border whose quiet life is disrupted by tourists fleeing nuclear war. In “The Man,” a captain and his lieutenant’s faith are put to the test by the arrival of a mysterious man who travels from planet to planet, healing the sick and comforting the poor. “The Long Rain” sees a crew of military astronauts trudging through the nonstop rains of Venus, pitting the human will to survive against the power of nature.

In “The Rocket Man,” a family is torn apart by the father’s restlessness: At home he longs to be in space; in space, he longs to be at home. In “The Last Night of the World,” a couple realizes that Earth only has one day left to exist. They choose to spend it as they always do: in normal domestic activities with each other. “The Exiles” imagines a dystopian future where the government has banned all imaginative works. Famous authors of speculative fiction and their creations, hiding out on Mars, make their final stand against an invading force of astronauts.

“No Particular Night or Morning” centers on a philosophical dialogue between astronauts Hitchcock, a radical skeptic who is no longer certain anything exists, and his more optimistic friend Clemens. In “The Fox and the Forest,” a time-traveling couple from 2155 AD flee agents of a draconian future in 1930s Mexico. Leonard Martin, a telepath, is the newest addition to a desperate crew of men quarantined on Mars with a deadly respiratory disease in “The Visitor.”

In “The Concrete Mixer,” a Martian invasion of Earth is defeated not by military force but by the insidious power of consumerism. In “Marionettes, Inc.,” lifelike robots serve as secret, temporary stand-ins for spouses in unhappy marriages, and two unsuspecting husbands learn to be careful about what they wish for. “The City” seems abandoned when a rocket expedition discovers it on a faraway world. In fact, it was built by a race destroyed by humans eons ago and has been waiting for their return.

In “ Zero Hour ,” children all over the world are playing a fun new game called Invasion!, which may not be a game at all. A poverty-stricken father finds a way to take his family on an exciting journey to space, via virtual reality, in “The Rocket.” Finally, “The Illustrated Man” explores the backstory of William Philippus Phelps, a carnival worker tattooed by a time-traveling witch. The tattoos’ ability to tell the future raises intriguing questions about destiny and free will.

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The Illustrated Man

GCSE English

         Ray Bradbury wrote The Illustrated Man  in 1951. The general context of that time in the USA had a powerful impact on the themes he chose to base his book on. The Second World War had seen horrific crimes against humanity, dictatorship and a change in family life which was due to both the huge number of dead fathers and the great technological development. Women started working more and more in jobs previously seen as exclusively male and appliances such as the washing machine and the vacuum cleaner cleared more time for the typical housewife. Affected and inspired by these circumstances, Bradbury wrote his 18 different stories in the book, exploring family life, technology implications and politics from extreme points of view. The stories chosen here to be discussed in a comparative and contrasting manner are “The Veldt”, “The Rocket”, “Zero Hour”, “The Fox and the Forest” and “The Other Foot”. The main reason for choosing these is their outstanding figurative representation and artistic input.

        Family life takes a new turn, as Bradbury presents in “The Veldt”, and it isn’t positive. The father-son relationship deteriorates as we can see from their conversations. Even though the parents have done their best to fulfil all their children’s wishes, the final effect is a tense family relationship, mainly characterised by the children’s selfishness. Peter, the son, regards his father as nothing more than a sort of institution to fight against, rather than anything close to his heart. “What’s wrong with Africa, Father?” calling him “Father,” on multiple occasions after initially calling him “Dad,” Also, there is some verbal violence between them, as suggested “I don’t think you’d better consider it any more, Father,” “I won’t have any threats from my son!”

        However, “The Rocket” provides a completely different picture. Although poor, all members of the family get along and support each other with respect. “’I go to Mars!’ He danced wildly. ‘Thank you, Father!’“ The children are grateful for everything and love their parents. In opposition to Peter and Wendy from “The Veldt”, the children here are selfless.

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        Another heavy element in Bradbury’s view of the future is the power of imagination. Once more, this is portrayed as evil or heavenly. In “The Veldt” the children end up killing their parents through the sole mean of imagination fuelled by the “nursery”. A similar scenario is suggested in “Zero Hour” where aliens abuse children’s rich potential for imagination to invade the perfectly defended Earth. A brighter story from this point of view is “The Rocket”, because the father uses the power of imagination and simulation to offer his children an amazing experience which would have been impossible to achieve in their materially limited reality.

        The technology bloom in the 1950s influenced Bradbury to magnify his vision of the future in terms of the way homes looked and worked, as well as space travel and time travel. The parents in “The Veldt” buy a “Happy Home” which does everything for them: cooks, cleans and rocks them to bed. This seems amazing at first, but they end up wishing they could leave their perfect home behind and “start fresh” in a regular house, “You’re beginning to feel unnecessary, too,” says Lydia. Bradbury uses figures of speech to represent this, emphasizing on personification of dead objects “And although their beds tried very hard, the two adults couldn’t be rocked to sleep for another hour,” Also, it appears that children come to replace their parents with the nursery, “I wish you were dead!” “We were, for a long while,” The father realises that he and his wife haven’t spent enough time with their children, making them feel more attached to machinery, “That sounds dreadful! Would I have to tie my own shoes instead of letting the shoe tier do it?”

        The language Bradbury uses to describe the nursery is very effective. He uses the senses to emphasize the powerful reproduction of the African veldt, “The hot straw smell of lion grass, the cool green smell of the hidden water hole, the great rusty smell of animals, the smell of dust like a red paprika in the hot air,” The simile “dust like a red paprika” and the repetition “smell” give a good impression of the veldt, the heat and the strong odours in the air.

        Another technological vision present in Bradbury’s writings is space travel. In “The Rocket”, rich people are able to travel and live in space. This is shown as a part of their daily routine, as Bodoni watches the rockets every night and his children have rocket toys. Also, he is able to buy a ticket “next day”, emphasizing on the ease with which people travel in space.

        In “The Fox and the Forest” people are able to travel in the past, anywhere, “Travel in Time, Inc., can costume you, put you in a crowd during the assassination of Lincoln or Caesar!” This shows the extent to which Bradbury sees the technology rise.

        Perhaps the most horrifying element of the stories is war within the context of dictatorship and dystopia. A well-portrayed story from this point of view is “The Fox and the Forest”. Mexico is celebrating during WW2, “Everything was good and sweet, the air was that blend of the dead and the living, of the rains and the dusts, of the incense from the church, and the brass smell of the tubas on the bandstand which pulsed out vast rhythms of ‘La Paloma’,” The atmosphere in Mexico contrasts with the one in the future in the year 2155. The use of language here portrays a horrible world of war and dictatorship, “A world that was like a great black ship pulling away from the shore of sanity and civilization, roaring its black horn in the night, taking two billion people with it, whether they wanted to go or not, to death, to fall over the edge of the earth and the sea into radioactive flame and madness,” The repetition of the word “black” in “black ship” and “black thorn” signifies death, nothingness and everything evil; the simile “A world […] like a great black ship pulling away from […] civilization,” shows how the world has shrunk all its possibilities into a black vessel that no one can get out of. The world has lost all its spirit and joy, and all that remained was a continuous chain of destruction and manslaughter. This is a great way of representing dystopia.

        The political and social elements present in Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man  reflect warnings to humanity, a potential Third World War and its imminence. In “The Other Foot” there is a strong reference to the racism experienced by black people during the 20 th  century. “You remember how they hung my father on Knockwood Hill and shot my mother?” Despite this, the story ends in a positive tone, reflecting Bradbury’s hope for the future, even in the event that most of it is destroyed. “Now everything’s even. We can start all over again, on the same level,”

Bradbury’s views of the future contrast on all levels, peace and war, wealth and poverty, good families and bad families. In his dark visions there is always a spark of light and in his most utopic views there is a pinch of evil.

Document Details

• Word Count 1235
• Page Count 3
• Subject English

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