A Summary and Analysis of Ray Bradbury’s ‘The City’ (2024)

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The City’ is a short story about revenge best served cold. Written by the American author Ray Bradbury (1920-2012), the story was included in his 1952 collection The Illustrated Man. The story is about a city which has waited twenty thousand years for man to return so that the city can visit a terrible revenge upon Earth for a past crime.

Some of the themes touched upon in ‘The City’, either directly or indirectly, are revenge, the posthuman, and colonialism. Before we offer a fuller analysis of Bradbury’s story, though, here’s a brief summary of its plot.

‘The City’: plot summary

The story is about a city which acts like an animate being, with eyes, ears, and a brain. The inhabitants of the city, who died thousands of years ago, made the city into one large organism before they perished from incurable leprosy (as we discover towards the end of the story). The city has waited twenty thousand years.

At the beginning of the story, we don’t know what it has been waiting for, but we will discover that it has been waiting for men from Earth to return to this planet, and this city, so that the city can exact its revenge upon all of humankind.

At the beginning of Bradbury’s story, a crew of Earthmen arrive in a rocket and begin to explore and examine the city. As they do so, they start to awaken the parts of the city which have remained dormant for thousands of years. The smell of the men awakens the large Nose of the city – in other words, its olfactory receptors.

One of the crew, a man named Smith, is suspicious of the city’s strange behaviour and urges the captain of the mission to return to the rocket and leave. But the captain dismisses his fears, believing that the entire city is dead and that they are the first men from Earth ever to visit the city.

However, shortly after this the captain is caught in a trap sprung by the city, and his body is sliced up and his body parts examined scientifically. The city recognises that the captain shared the same features as previous men from Earth, and puts his body back together, with his vital organs replaced by mechanical ones. This bionic man is then released into the streets, where he promptly shoots Smith dead before addressing the remaining crew.

He tells them that he now is the city, having been programmed by it to go among them and wreak the city’s revenge upon all of mankind from Earth. This is because the last inhabitants of the city died out when Earthmen visited the city, thousands of years ago, bringing with them a terrible disease. This deadly disease, a form of leprosy, wiped out the city’s population, but not because they had programmed the city to enact their revenge when Earthmen next returned to the planet.

The rest of the crew are then seized and killed by the city, which turns them all into bionic men like the captain. They all look the same as before, but underneath they are machines programmed by the city to take golden bombs containing a deadly disease culture back to Earth and drop it upon the inhabitants, wiping them out as Earthmen had wiped out the citizens of this city. Once the rocket has departed, the city appears to breathe a sigh of relief, knowing it can wind down and die now that it has carried out its revenge.

‘The City’: analysis

Bradbury’s story can be analysed as an allegory about colonialism, but instead of one nation exploring, conquering, and subjugating another, one whole planet – Earth – has taken over another planet in a different star system. The city of the story’s title was once colonised by Earthmen, who brought disease with them; this disease wiped out the natives of this alien city.

Many early European settlers to the New World also brought diseases with them from the Old World. Serious diseases like smallpox, measles, typhus, and cholera were all unknown to native Americans, and so there was no natural immunity to these diseases among indigenous peoples. By taking the history of European settlement in America to a galactic level, Bradbury removes the subject from its specific historical moorings so that readers can dwell upon the universal moral questions surrounding colonialism.

‘The City’ is an example of a revenge tale, but again, this is applied on a galactic scale, in keeping with science fiction. (Bradbury preferred to regard himself as a ‘fantasy’ writer, but much of his work, including stories such as ‘The City’, can also be categorised as science fiction.) The large scale applies not just to the sheer space involved (literal space, as in outer space), but the time: rather than being about a single character waiting years to exact a revenge against someone who wronged them, this story is about a whole people waiting millennia, long after they have all themselves perished, to wreak a terrible vengeance upon the sons of the sons (and so on) of the original perpetrators.

When we analyse such a component of the story alongside its colonial (or postcolonial?) theme, this raises some interesting questions. If we do choose to interpret ‘The City’ as an allegory for European colonialism and the roughshod way many early settlers swept aside native peoples, bringing them disease and displacing them, then where is the moral centre of Bradbury’s tale? Should we feel sympathy for the city in its long-term quest for revenge?

The answer is perhaps no – and yes. We can feel sympathy for its plight, or rather for the fates of its citizens who died when Earthmen casually colonised their homeland and inadvertently killed them, and even express sympathy for the idea of reparation. But the idea of making the sons pay for the sins of the fathers (or great-great-great etc. grandfathers) is likely to strike modern readers as immoral, even odious. After all, killing the descendants of those colonial Earthmen by visiting germ warfare upon them isn’t going to bring the citizens of ‘the city’ back from the dead.

Indeed, the city is itself a city of the dead: despite its status as living organism, there are no living humans left walking its streets or living in its buildings. The revenge is exacted in a coldly inhuman – indeed, literally inhuman – manner which shows even less regard for human life than the original Earthly visitors did for the natives. But then these descendants of Earthmen have come to visit the city. For what purpose? To see if there’s potential for a neo-colonial takeover?

This is what makes Ray Bradbury’s fiction so difficult to pin down. Even if the story is allegory, we are left with enough gaps in the story’s details for us to speculate on the moral thrust of the tale. We are left wondering, debating, and conjecturing, and discussing one of the most important topics of the last few centuries of our own small planet’s behaviour – and the human exploitation of large parts of it.

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A Summary and Analysis of Ray Bradbury’s ‘The City’ (2024)

FAQs

What is the message of the city by Ray Bradbury? ›

Answer and Explanation: A Major theme of The City is revenge. The living City will cling to hatred and hope of revenge against humanity for its annihilation of the City's inhabitants 20,000 years earlier.

What is the main idea of The Pedestrian by Ray Bradbury? ›

In "The Pedestrian," Ray Bradbury has chosen to make a statement on the effects of these improvements. Through characterization and imagery, he shows that if mankind advances to the point where society loses its humanity, then mankind may as well cease to exist.

What is the analysis of The Pedestrian? ›

"The Pedestrian" analysis is quite simple: a dystopian future involving the technology of "viewing screens" causes the dehumanization of society.

What is the summary of The Pedestrian? ›

Summary: “The Pedestrian” “The Pedestrian” is a dystopian science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury that deals with themes of The Pressure to Conform to Social Norms, The Dangers of Technological Advancement, and The Horrors of Government Control. and explores the loss of creative thought.

What is the theme of the city and the city? ›

In conclusion, The City & The City is a thought-provoking exploration of identity, politics, and the power of perception. Through its unique setting and complex characters, the novel challenges our understanding of reality and the ways in which we choose to 'unsee' the world around us.

What is the city and the city about? ›

The City and the City is a British television serial, first screened in April 2018. It is a science-fiction/crime drama, based on the novel of the same name by China Miéville. The story follows the investigation of a young woman's murder in the unusual twin cities of Besźel and Ul Qoma.

What are 2 main themes from The Pedestrian summarized? ›

'The Pedestrian' by Ray Bradbury is a short story that explores several key themes, including the dangers of technology, life without freedom and the importance of maintaining the qualities that make us human.

What does Bradbury create irony in his story The Pedestrian? ›

Answer and Explanation: In "The Pedestrian," Bradbury creates irony through the use of what should be an ordinary situation—Mr. Mead walking at night—that turns into a life-changing arrest.

What is the theme of the short story? ›

The theme in a story is its underlying message, or 'big idea. ' In other words, what critical belief about life is the author trying to convey in the writing of a novel, play, short story or poem? This belief, or idea, transcends cultural barriers.

What is ironic about the conclusion of The Pedestrian? ›

Dramatic irony is shown when the cop stops Leonard Mead during his nightly walk, and he ultimately sentences Mr. Mead to a mental institution. Leonard Mead would be considered normal in our society, but he's abnormal in his, for doing things like walking, which shouldn't require punishment.

What is the narrative point of view in The Pedestrian? ›

"The Pedestrian" is narrated in the third-person limited point of view, specifically focusing on Mr. Leonard Mead. This perspective provides readers with insight into Mead's thoughts and actions, allowing them to empathize with his experiences.

Why is The Pedestrian a dystopia? ›

This is Ray Bradbury's "The Pedestrian," a dystopian, science fiction short story that explores the idea of freedom in a dysfunctional future society in which technology has made humans so mindless that they only sit inside all day and look at their screens.

What is the irony in The Pedestrian? ›

Quick answer: The irony in "The Pedestrian" lies in the depiction of the protagonist's normal activities, such as walking, as abnormal in the dystopian society. Leonard Mead, an avid walker, is considered regressive and is arrested for his harmless activity.

Why is there only one police car in The Pedestrian? ›

Ever since a year ago, 2052, the election year, the force had been cut down from three cars to one. Crime was ebbing; there was no need now for the police, save for this one lone car wandering and wandering the empty streets.

What is the symbolism in The Pedestrian? ›

Viewing Screens. Televisions, also known as “viewing screens” in “The Pedestrian,” symbolize the rejection of critical thought and the written word, as well as social control.

What is the meaning of the short story The Fall of a City? ›

Alden Nowlan's story called “The Fall of a City” discusses the central theme of how life circ*mstances are beyond human control in most of the cases. This theme is applied to the specific idea of coming of age through the story of the main character.

What is one of the main themes of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit? ›

What are the main themes of Fahrenheit 451? The main theme of the novel is the government's abusive power including censorship and how people accept the government's authoritative role without question.

What is the fall of a city short story about? ›

Plot. Teddy is an eleven year old boy that spends his time in his aunt and uncles attic reenacting warfare. He creates an imaginary kingdom of Upalia and when his uncle finds out, Teddy is ridiculed for playing with paper dolls. Teddy, who is upset, then proceeds to destroy his kingdom and everything he built.

What is the fall of a city about? ›

The story “The Fall of a City” by Alden Nowlan, is about a young little boy known as Teddy, being parented by two drab, unimaginative adults who corrupt his mind and lead him to destroy his ambition for the future. Without good role models for the children on earth, this world will have no future.

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