" Slowly, pleasurably the, city enjoyed the luxury of dying. "
SummaryThe city waited twenty thousand years. One day on a summer afternoon in the middle of twenty thousandth year, a rocket arrives, one manned by travelers from Earth, a crew of 6. The crew's captain warns the men to be careful, but crew member Jones argues that the city is dead and therefore it requires no concern. The city senses the travelers. The city's Ears and the Nose take in information about the visitors and asks the Eyes to watch them as they explore. Smith, another crew member, senses something familiar about the place, despite the fact that it's billions of miles from Earth and they have the only light-year rocket in existence. Smith be, gins to panic as the city comes fully awake. He runs back to the rocket and the captain chases after him - however, the city traps the captain and rips him open with precision. The city takes over the captain's body.
The city verifies these men are the enemies, the Earthians who declared war on its native people, the Taollans, twenty thousand years ago; these Earthians fled to another galaxy after it laid waste to the world with disease. The city fills the captain's dead body with artificial parts before sewing him back together. He then re-appears on the city street and shoots Smith dead. The other men are shocked as the city speaks through the reanimated captain, explaining its people's revenge after twenty thousand years and two false alarms with other visitors. The men think the captain is sick, but the pavement gives way, the city does what the city did to the captain to the crew members that are left. Soon, these men - now artificially reanimated tools of the city - head back in their rocket with disease bombs, which they are commanded to drop on Earth. Having performed its mission, the city finally allows itself to die. The city is content with the revenge that has taken place. |
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AnalysisIn Ray Bradbury's short story, The City, the protagonist, an abandoned City, finally get revenge that the city has waited to get for twenty thousand years. The City plans to get revenge on the Earthians for killings its people. The City is not a human, rather a city on a planet that is far away from Earth, but the city has a lot of human characteristics. The City has windows for eyes, wind for a nose and ears, and the pavement to measure those who walk on it, the city is alive. The antagonists in this story are the men from the rocket. The city wants to get revenge against them.
The city is in a space, its abandoned, and has no people living on it, being in space represents vastness, darkness, evil, and death, which is everything the story is about. The City is the city wanting to get revenge on the Earthians for killing all of its civilians. The city gets revenge by precisely cutting the Earthians body's and filling them with deadly diseases, once the city has done that, the city commands the earthians to drop golden bombs of disease onto their planet earth. The city is trying to get even. In the efforts of the city trying to get revenge, the city learns that even if it takes twenty thousand years to plan out your revenge, once its been executed you're left feeling empty. We've seen revenge happen in our world to. We've seen the Holocaust, where Hitler wanted to kill a lot of people for their looks, religion, and orientation. Hitler killed all of those people, and that caused people to want to get revenge against Hitler. In WWII, people who were trying to get revenge against Hitler ended up killing more people. They tried to solve the problem by killing more people. Another example of revenge is Pearl Harbor. Japan bombed the US and just like The City, the US bombed their enemy. Revenge is not a permanent solution. |