Ray Bradbury’s the Martian Chronicles is a futuristic story about space
travel, invasion and planet colonization. Analyzing characters in this
twenty-eight-chapter novel is extremely difficult because every chapter includes
different characters, which are oriented to form the plot. Each chapter’s
characters are used to show the founding of the planet Mars, the colonization of
it, the destruction of Earth and almost the whole human race, and finally the
rebuilding of the human civilization on Mars. The story starts off in the year
of 1999 and ends twenty-seven years later in 2026. Ray Bradbury doesn’t just
tell his story from the point of view of the space travelers and the colonizers,
but from angry Martians who were trying to kill the humans or Martians later on
who were just having a conversation with a human about Mars, also people seeing
the great colonial change happen. Captain Wilder was the captain of the fourth
expedition to Mars from Earth. The three expeditions before had failed because
either the Martians tricked and killed the earthlings or the earth people were
thought of as mentally ill and sent to a hospital on Mars. Later on in the story
when there are towns on Mars, the very few Martians are not discriminated
against because the people on Mars were kind people who were in search of new
things and seeing Martians was rare. Luckily the minor human sickness, chicken
pox, had killed off most of the Martians accidentally. Captain Wilder and his
crew explored the planet and responded to Earth to say that the missions were
successful, and with only a few complications. Captain Wilder with his Crew of
Jeff Spender, Hathaway, Sam Parkhill, Cheroke, Gibbs and a few other men help
begin to portray the theme of the story, by finding Mars and seeing that it was
safe (this was in the beginning of the story, but in the last several chapters
they are brought back as veterans of Mars when it is deserted). The theme is
that humans are not a great race of colonizers, but they are really just
destructive. All that was left for Earth to do was send the settlers to colonize
Mars. Jeff Spender was a very quiet fellow; the crew called him, “the Lonely
One.” When Jeff reached Mars, he was outraged on how humans had killed this
Martian race by a measly child irritation to some children. He left the group
and learned as much as he could about their language and culture. Eventually
Jeff became angry with humans because he knew what they would do to what was
left of the alien culture when they colonize Mars. He said that unlike humans
this race did not ask why we are here, they just enjoyed and basked in the rays
of life. The Martian culture was magnificent and Jeff did not want it to be
destroyed. Therefore his goal was not to let anyone colonize Mars. Jeff went
back to Wilder’s camp and shot Gibbs whom he greatly disliked because of his
immature enmity towards the Martian culture. He then shot four more men who were
eating lunch peacefully. Captain Wilder was a very serious and staid figure and
also a good friend of Jeff Spender. Jeff thought that Wilder would understand
his reasoning, but he was wrong. Wilder did not like that Jeff had killed his
buddies and coworkers. Eventually after a long chase through the thin air of
Mars, Wilder talked it over with Spender, but obviously they did not agree over
this matter. This external conflict was solved and finished when Jeff was
finally shot before he could stop the colonization of Mars by killing all space
travelers. Captain Wilder’s expedition was successful. After this mission was
complete, Captain Wilder was sent with his crew to Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune
for exploring. “I heard they had kicked you upstairs so you wouldn’t
interfere with colonial policy here on Mars,” exclaimed Mr. Hathaway in 2026
after meeting up again with Captain Wilder. Captain Wilder had not changed since
that fourth expedition to Mars; he was still the same serious and adventurous
character, except a little older of course. Captain Wilder and his crew, Mr.
Hathaway and his family, two other people left who did not go back to Earth and
another family were the only people left on Mars. They were in charge of
rebuilding the human race on Mars because the Earth was being destroyed in a
twenty-year world war. Human civilization was starting all over again. This book
is not just like the popular science fiction theme of planet colonization, but
it is told in a new-fashioned way, through the eyes of many different people.
The story was very enjoyable to read because of its differentness. I admire the
way Ray Bradbury very creatively tied each chapter with different characters
together. The only thing I would change would be to add a larger connection
between the fourth expedition characters in the beginning of the book to those
in the end when they are rebuilding the human race. Otherwise this book is an
innovative piece of art and I recommend it to anyone seeking a different type of
science fiction book to read.