Technology, Divinity, and the Apocalypse

Question Investigated: What role do associations between technology and religious imagery play in "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury and "Speech Sounds" by Octavia Butler?

"There Will Come Soft Rains" by Rad Bradbury draws a clear comparison between religion and technology, specifically the functions of the automated house that the story centers around. The text states, "The house was an altar with ten thousand attendants, big, small, servicing, attending, in choirs. But the Gods had gone away and the ritual of the religion continued, uselessly" (Bradbury 324). Although the text references humans as the Gods technology must serve, I think a closer reading of the text actually complicates that statement. Diving into the story, we immediately see how the house's functions have been tailored for human consumption, in particular that of an idyllic suburban family. The clock announces in a jovial rhyme, "Seven-nine, breakfast, time, seven-nine!". The house then breaks into a list of the family's responsibilities for the day, and the memories of human connection are evident, mentions of "Mr. Featherstone's birthday and "Tilita's marriage" and a repetition of "the date three times for memory's sake" (Bradbury 322). Images of emptiness accompany these distinctively "human" touches. As the house breaks into verse about the rain, "no doors slammed. No carpets took the soft tread of rubber heels." The house flushes "shriveled" eggs and toast "like stone" away to the sea and commands "tiny, robot mice" to suck "gently at hidden dust." As we learn that "the house stood alone in a city of rubble and ashes" after the ravages of thermonuclear war, we begin to feel the sadness that no one remains to receive the warmth that the house has to share (Bradbury 323).

However, as we read, further on the more twisted nature of the house begins to reveal itself. It exhibits a kind of "mechanical paranoia" towards the surrounding nature. Its "old-maidenly preoccupation with self-protection" causes it to "shut up its windows" and block out wildlife. "If a sparrow brushed a window, the shade snapped up. The bird, startled, flew off!" No, not even a bird must touch the house!" It becomes apparent how the house does not exhibit in actuality much of a "human touch" and rather remains committed to a singular ideal in its programming. This truth becomes apparent when the house lets in the family's dog, "now gone to bone and covered with sores." The "angry mice" whir at the "inconvenience" of "having to pick up mud" (Bradbury 324). Abiding by the laws of its programming, the house turns from caring to destructive.  The brutality of the house continues as the dog "spins in a frenzy" and dies. The mice finally seem satisfied as they "delicately [sense] decay." We only hear that "The dog was gone" and "the incinerator glowed suddenly" (Bradbury 325). By positioning the house's friendlier touches with its parallel role as a destructive monster, the text implies that the houses was programmed with human ideals, but by taking those ideals as absolute with the absence of humans, a new brutality emerges. Elevating human commands to a "religion" doesn't mean that the house behaves with a human touch. Instead, it follows a subset of human ideology even when there are terrible consequences. A broader comparison can be drawn between the house and all technology, that they give ideologies quasi-religious status through their programming. The nuclear weapons system that destroyed the town embodied a human desire for peace but distilled that wish into the ideology of mutually assured destruction. As we reflect on the prospect of nuclear war contained in the story, we realize that people must have consented as the missiles launched. The destructive ideology contained in weapons of global destruction had been elevated to such a degree that even the people it was about to kill didn't challenge it.

In "Speech Sounds," by Octavia Butler, a very different sort of apocalypse occurs. The world is struck by a pandemic that impairs capacities of reasoning and language. Unable to express, complex concepts and desires, violence and snap judgements become the primary mode of human communication. It's a situation similar to the story of the Tower of Babel in the Bible. After attempting to unite to build a tower to the heavens, God scatters humanity into diverse peoples all speaking different languages, destined to war with each other. Early in the story, we see that exact sort of "war" occur. The main character of the story, Rye, knows that a fight will begin "when someone's nerve broke or someone's hand slipped or someone came to the end of his limited ability to communicate. These things could happen anytime." (Butler 89-90). The parable of the Tower of Babel also mentions God fearing the effects of human cooperation: "nothing that they propose will now be impossible for them." The setting of "Speech Sounds" is one in which all forms of cooperation have broken down. Rye notes that people on intercity journeys like her had to risk "seeking shelter with locals who might rob or murder them" and as a man violently gestures towards her, the text matter-of-factly acknowledges "People might very well stand by and watch if he tried to rape her. They also might stand and watcher her shoot him" (Butler 91, 95). By offering this Babelesque narrative, Butler takes a pessimistic stance, casting human brutality and selfishness as primordial, or even divinely ordained.

So where does language come in? Well, language is considered by many anthropologists to itself be a technology. It plays a similar role in privileging certain human ideals and thereby uniting people in both "Speech Sounds" and the story of the Tower of Babel. The people of Babel state, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." They seek to use technology to embody the ideal of a united civilization. Similarly, Rye notes how the destruction of language also wiped out any large-scale organizations with a common purpose. Seeing the Obsidian's LAPD badge, Rye remembers, "There was no more LAPD, no more any large organization, governmental or private" (Butler 92). Obsidian, like the inhabitants of Babel, rebels by trying to continue to adhere to ideals as someone who has partially preserved their linguistic capabilities. He repeatedly privileges the ideal of justice, intervening in a fight on a bus and an attack on a mother and her children. Adding to themes of rebellion, Obsidian is left-handed, a feature that Rye notes makes people less impaired by the illness. Historically, left-handedness was viewed as a devilish influence, and indeed, most people display an attitude similar to that of the jealous God towards Obsidian and others with language capacities. Rye notes that an attitude of "superiority," standing back while those "with less control [would] scream or jump around," "was frequently punished by beatings, even death." The bus driver who Obsidan saves is unable to perceive that "he would not eat very well" if "his bus was torn apart by senseless fighting" (Butler 93-44). Ultimately, Obsidian is killed trying to protect a mother and her children who could speak. The ending contains hope, but also pessimism. Rye wonders whether the mother was killed by the "jealous rage" of a stranger (Butler 106)  Rye notes that she could be a teacher, a transmitter of ideas and language, to the children, but for now, they can only speak to each other. The people embody a similar divine jealous wrath to the one portrayed in the Bible and hate language for its unifying capacities. By portraying Obsidian, a man with ideals, with devilish characteristics, and emphasizing the persecution of those like him, the story suggests that primordial human selfishness considers the unifying ideals of language and technology like "false Gods" that must be wiped out. 

"There Will Come Soft Rains" and "Speech Sounds" by Octavia Butler both acknowledge the potential of technologies to privilege certain human ideals and enshrine them with a quasi-religious status. Bradbury casts this aspect of technology in a negative light, showing how humans themselves will blindly ignore the ideologies embedded in their technologies even when it leads to their own destruction. In contrast, Butler depicts the ideals embodied in the technology of language as necessary for a functioning society. However, she pessimistically notes that such ideals are only "false gods" that are often overshadowed by a more selfish human nature. Perhaps the difference lies in whether the technologies are used by the powerful, like in Bradbury's narrative, or utilized collaboratively, like in Butler's. Language is one of the few society-ordering technologies with programming that remains accessible to all of us, and now that we've lived through one pandemic, perhaps it's time for all of us to find our voice.