The Martian Chronicles

“Once they had liked painting pictures with chemical fire, swimming in the canals in the seasons when the wine trees filled them with green liquors, and talking into the dawn together by the blue phosphorous portraits in the speaking room.”

Bradbury evokes the surreal mystery of Mars and the interconnectedness of their technology and environment with this odd catalogue. In order that the reader not feel alienated by the strange existence of the Martians, Bradbury includes the very human sting of nostalgia and the emanant relatability of domestic disappointment. 

“‘The third planet is incapable of supporting life.’”

At first glance this is a comedic line though one that darkens with the knowledge of the end of the novel. The second reading sees it as an indictment against humanity whose fractious ways lead to the annihilation of life on Earth, particularly when spoken by a Martian, a species with prophetic ability.

“The little town was full of people drifting in and out of doors, saying hello to one another, wearing golden masks and blue masks and crimson masks for pleasant variety, masks with silver lips and bronze eyebrows, masks that smiled, masks that frowned, according to the owner’s dispositions.”

A key part of Martian culture is depicted in the masks they wear, which leaves them unknowable even to each other. The masks also alienate the human perspective and come to stand for the inscrutability of the vanished species. Humanity will never know them for what they are.