After nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during WWII, scientists and the military discovered that objects and people within a close radius of the point of impact created what are called “nuclear shadows.” The UV rays from a nuclear bomb will “bleach” out everything around it, much like an x-ray produces a negative. For example, if a person is standing between the blast and a building, a shadow will be created of the person on the wall of the building.
This is what happened to the family in “There Will Come Soft Rains.” Here is Bradbury’s description of the event:
The entire west face of the house was black, save for five places. Here the silhouette in paint of a man mowing a lawn. Here, as in a photograph, a woman bent to pick 3 flowers. Still farther over, their images burned on wood in one titanic instant, a small boy, hands flung into the air; higher up, the image of a thrown ball, and opposite him a girl, hands raised to catch a ball which never came down. The five spots of paint—the man, the woman, the children, the ball—remained. The rest was a thin charcoaled layer.
Bradbury’s image of the last remaining moments of the family shows how death was instant. The family’s shadows are permanently etched into the wall while they are still in full motion. The family playing catch, picking flowers, and mowing the lawn sets the scene that is in opposition to the destructiveness of the nuclear bomb. Unfortunately, after the blast, all that is left are their silhouettes like “charcoal” on the home’s wall.
I have included a website with pictures from Hiroshima and Nagasaki below.
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