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Fantasy/SF Micro-essay #8: Ray Bradbury
Friday, September 21st, 2012 09:53 am[The latest in the series. I had trouble writing this oe because although I love Ray Bradbury and enjoyed The Martian Chronicles as a kid, I couldn't really get into it this time untilI looked at the publication date, then pennies started to drop.]
The Martian Chronicles was first published in 1950, coinciding with an increase of popular interest in psychology and the onset of the Cold War. It is thus unsurprising that it plays on the fear of having ones mind controlled by others; while Bradbury was writing the Chronicles, the CIA were busy laying the groundwork for Project MKUltra, which attempted to use drugs, hypnosis and radio signals for "mind control,"[1] and research on telepathy continued apace, including attempts to influence dreams.[2]
The first case of telepathy happens accidentally with Ylla's dreaming of York and singing his favourite songs; a similar case occurs in "The Summer Night" where the singer "tried to stop the words coming out of her lips" [3]. We soon learn that Martians are telepathic and even project their hallucinations to others, hence Mr. Xxx's diagnosis of the second expedition as collective hallucinations projected by their leader. Bradbury lampoons the tendency of psychiatrists to force all phenomena into their diagnostic parameters; even after Xxx shoots his "patient" and the others cry "No!" he muses clinically, "An auditory appeal, even with the patient dead."[4]
In "The Third Expedition" the Martians manipulate the minds of the humans to create a hallucination of an American town populated by their memories; they are told vaguely that this is a "second chance" where dead people are revived. Initially this seems an attempt to make the visitors feel at home (especially read through the lens of later works like 2001 or Contact) but it turns nasty; when John Black is killed as soon as he tries to escape. This is reminiscent of Cold War spy films featuring Russian mock-ups of American towns.
The Martians, however, are not an analogy of Soviets (they mourn the dead humans, for example); Bradbury invokes Cold War fears to temper excitement at meeting aliens with trepidation about what they may do to our minds.
[1] "Project MKUltra, The CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification: Joint hearing before the select committee on intelligence." US Government Printing Office. Retrieved 2012-04-14. http://www.scribd.com/doc/75512716/Project-MKUltra-The-CIA-s-Program-of-Research-in-Behavioral-Modification.
[2] W. Daim. "Studies in dream-telepathy" (Tomorrow, 2: 35-48. 1953).
[3] Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles (Toronto: Bantam Books, 1954) p. 15.
[4] ibid. p. 30.
The Martian Chronicles was first published in 1950, coinciding with an increase of popular interest in psychology and the onset of the Cold War. It is thus unsurprising that it plays on the fear of having ones mind controlled by others; while Bradbury was writing the Chronicles, the CIA were busy laying the groundwork for Project MKUltra, which attempted to use drugs, hypnosis and radio signals for "mind control,"[1] and research on telepathy continued apace, including attempts to influence dreams.[2]
The first case of telepathy happens accidentally with Ylla's dreaming of York and singing his favourite songs; a similar case occurs in "The Summer Night" where the singer "tried to stop the words coming out of her lips" [3]. We soon learn that Martians are telepathic and even project their hallucinations to others, hence Mr. Xxx's diagnosis of the second expedition as collective hallucinations projected by their leader. Bradbury lampoons the tendency of psychiatrists to force all phenomena into their diagnostic parameters; even after Xxx shoots his "patient" and the others cry "No!" he muses clinically, "An auditory appeal, even with the patient dead."[4]
In "The Third Expedition" the Martians manipulate the minds of the humans to create a hallucination of an American town populated by their memories; they are told vaguely that this is a "second chance" where dead people are revived. Initially this seems an attempt to make the visitors feel at home (especially read through the lens of later works like 2001 or Contact) but it turns nasty; when John Black is killed as soon as he tries to escape. This is reminiscent of Cold War spy films featuring Russian mock-ups of American towns.
The Martians, however, are not an analogy of Soviets (they mourn the dead humans, for example); Bradbury invokes Cold War fears to temper excitement at meeting aliens with trepidation about what they may do to our minds.
[1] "Project MKUltra, The CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification: Joint hearing before the select committee on intelligence." US Government Printing Office. Retrieved 2012-04-14. http://www.scribd.com/doc/75512716/Project-MKUltra-The-CIA-s-Program-of-Research-in-Behavioral-Modification.
[2] W. Daim. "Studies in dream-telepathy" (Tomorrow, 2: 35-48. 1953).
[3] Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles (Toronto: Bantam Books, 1954) p. 15.
[4] ibid. p. 30.
