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Your guide: Miss RabiaReads every story twice: once for fun, once for the paper.
A rocket lands in a Martian meadow. Out step Harry Bittering, his wife Cora and their three children. Harry's first words on Mars? “Let's get back on the rocket.”
They have come over sixty million miles to escape a war on Earth. They build a small white cottage and eat good breakfasts. But Harry's fear never leaves. He feels like a salt crystal in a mountain stream, being washed away.
Then the news comes: atom bombs have hit New York and every space rocket is gone. They are stranded. Harry wants to build a rocket and go home. Mars has other plans.
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A rocket lands in a Martian meadow. Out step Harry Bittering, his wife Cora and their three children. Harry's first words on Mars? “Let's get back on the rocket.”
They have come over sixty million miles to escape a war on Earth. They build a small white cottage and eat good breakfasts. But Harry's fear never leaves. He feels like a salt crystal in a mountain stream, being washed away.
Then the news comes: atom bombs have hit New York and every space rocket is gone. They are stranded. Harry wants to build a rocket and go home. Mars has other plans.
Author: Ray Bradbury. Theme (from your book): Harry clings to his Earth ways, but slowly the whole family changes and loses its Earthliness. You cannot stay the same in a new world.
Q1. Why did Harry want to go back to the Earth?
Harry felt that Earth people did not belong on Mars. He feared the Martian air would wash away who they were, like salt in a stream.
Q2. What was the condition of the Bittering family on hearing the news of the war on the Earth?
They were shocked and afraid. Laura sobbed that they were stranded forever; Harry, drenched in fear, still comforted her and said the rockets would come.
Q3. What was the advice Harry gave to the people?
He told them to build a rocket and go back, because if they stayed on Mars, something in the air would change them all.
✗ Writing that the Martians killed the settlers, or that a plague did.
✓ Nobody killed them. The “Martians” in the hills are the settlers themselves, changed by Mars. Only the rescuers guess at a plague.
✗ Writing that the rescue rocket came six years later.
✓ Five years later. Other numbers to keep straight: over sixty million miles, a thousand settlers, five hundred dollars for the metal.
✗ Exercise 5: “He drenched in the hotness of his fear.”
✓ The fear did it to him, so use the passive: “He was drenched in the hotness of his fear.” The same goes for “The boards were warped out of shape.”
1. Which city was attacked, according to the radio flash?
(c) Laura sobs: “Atom bombs hit New York! All the space rockets have blown up.”
2. For how many dollars did Sam offer to sell the metal?
(d) Five hundred dollars, and he joked that Harry could build a rocket alone in about thirty years.
3. What did Harry see when Sam handed him the mirror?
(b) There were little, very dim flecks of new gold in the blue of his eyes: the first sign that he was changing too.
4. In which season did Mr. Bittering stand “very dark now, very golden-eyed”?
(c) Summer burned the canals dry and rusted the rocket; in the quiet autumn he stood dark and golden-eyed.
5. Who were the dark, golden-eyed “Martians” living in the hills?
(b) The settlers had become the “native life”. The rescuers could not recognise them, which is the story's twist.