Ray Bradbury has long been celebrated as a master of fiction. But it is not only the wondrous realms he shows us nor the fantastic possibilities he shares, but the his characters, his embodiments of humanity that truly captures readers. Courage, weakness, love, hate, passion and cool logic fill the pages of his short stories, novels and screen plays. To focus on these themes Ray Bradbury utilizes fantastic settings and dangerous technology magnifying and examining the ageless paradox of humanity.
             The short story collections of Ray Bradbury best capture his most powerful themes, and The Illustrated Man in particular bestows a wide variety and depth of meaning. For instance, int "The Long Rain" Human will and courage are put to the test, and the value of each is wieghed. A rocket crew crashed and stranded on Venus, a planet stricken with perpetual rain leave their broken ship to seek the shelter of the fabled Sun Dome, a shining beacon to marooned travelers and lost parties, a great building in which synthetic sun shines giving warmth and respite from the bleak planet without. "The Long Rain" puts forth the question of strength and endurance in an isolated struggle for one's life. " The rain continued. It was an Hard Rain , a perpetual rain, a sweating and steaming rain; it was a mizzle, a downpour, a fountain, a whipping at the eyes, and undertow at the ankles; it came by the pound and the ton..."(illustrated) In this extreme environment, Bradbury is able to isolate the men and show only their will and weakness. With nothing other than the rain and their nerves to keep them from reaching the Sun Dome the power of human will is brilliantly illustrated as three men trek across the drenched landscape searching for salvation. Bradbury's main themes are what is best in America and the American people, or indeed what is best in humanity ( bradbury.htm) Along the trek in the constant, excruciating rain, crew mates are lost, not ...