125 pages • 4 hours read
Ray BradburyThe Martian Chronicles
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1950A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Before You Read 
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Summary
“January 1999: Rocket Summer”
“February 1999: Ylla”
“August 1999: The Summer Night”
“August 1999: The Earth Men”
“March 2000: The Taxpayer”
“April 2000: The Third Expedition”
“June 2001: —And the Moon Be Still as Bright”
“August 2001: The Settlers”
“December 2001: The Green Morning”
“February 2002: The Locusts”
“August 2002: Night Meeting”
“October 2002: The Shore”
“February 2003: Interim”
“April 2003: The Musicians”
“June 2003: Way in the Middle Air”
“2004-2005: The Naming of Names”
“April 2005: Usher II”
“August 2005: The Old Ones”
“September 2005: The Martian”
“November 2005: The Luggage Store”
“November 2005: The Off Season”
“November 2005: The Watchers”
“December 2005: The Silent Towns”
“April 2026: The Long Years”
“August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains”
“October 2026: The Million-Year Picnic”
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
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“August 2005: The Old Ones”Chapter Summaries & Analyses
“August 2005: The Old Ones” Summary
Once Mars has been colonized by the early settlers, then the tourists and the “aromatic sophisticates” (157) who reform society into its sanitized version, the elderly population of the Earth, “the dry and crackling people” (157), travel to Mars.
“August 2005: The Old Ones” Analysis
Bradbury’s descriptions of the elderly Earthlings, as “the dried-apricot people”, “the mummy people” (157), and particularly the “dry and crackling people” (157), evoke the remains of the Martians witnessed in “The Musicians,” whose bodies had become like autumn leaves, signaling the end of human ascendancy on Mars, and the pivot of the wider narrative towards the failed extents of human colonization.
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By Ray Bradbury
