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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“November 2005: The Watchers”Chapter Summaries & Analyses
“November 2005: The Watchers” Summary
News of war on Earth spreads across Mars to the settlers who remain. Many leave their homes to watch “the green star of Earth” (191) in the sky. They struggle with imagining the war across all that distance and reconciling themselves with the numbing aspect of life in a distant territory, realizing that “space was an anesthetic” (192). But looking at the Earth, their memories are rekindled, and several people inquire about their relatives back home.
To their horror, the Earth explodes and burns while they watch. The settlers are in shock and talk about contacting their relatives, but none do so. Once the Earth stops burning, a message is received from the planet, a light blinking in Morse code, its primary message: “COME HOME” (193). Soon after, the Proprietor of the luggage store sells out of his stock.
“November 2005: The Watchers” Analysis
The reappearance of the luggage store proprietor couples this vignette with “The Luggage Store” and seems to confirm many of the suspicions the Proprietor and Father Peregrine discussed. The argumentative structure of the vignettes is similar, with the nature of belief examined through the lens of distance before the notion of human connection overriding that distance is suggested.
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By Ray Bradbury
