| I don�t know if there are separate studies of the stories out there, but I�ll give you a brief, late-night stab.
The city is clearly a creation of a race that seeks revenge upon a species (humans) that wiped it out with a disease and abandoned it 20,000 years ago. The city sleeps until beings come, then it examines those beings. If they are not human, those beings are allowed to go free; but when the humans get there, the city activates itself and seeks revenge. It captures the captain and brutally, but efficiently dismembers him. It then recreates the captain as a robotic being under the skin of the captain.
The captain then goes out and, using the power of voice, explains the reason for the revenge and the methodology of it. Each of the men were dismembered and rebuilt as machines. The nine new men then loaded the bombs of disease culture to be taken to earth and dropped there � wiping out the human species as the �alien� culture was wiped out 20,000 years ago.
Once the rocket takes off, the city then enjoys the �luxury of dying.�
Major themes are the reality and nature of revenge. The consequences of abusing another species and planet. The festering of hatred and vengeance. And, in our current time, the danger of biological weapons of mass destruction (WMD) � a rather compelling theme for our day!
The city acts alive. Is it? It is one of the questions of artificial intelligence. Is the city a being, or just a very complex, efficient machine? Does the city �feel� the need for vengeance, or is it mechanically executing it�s program and design?
Is the idea of a vengeance of this scope a �just� response? The persons upon whom the vengeance is being wrought had nothing to do with the original �crime�.
�The Illustrated Man�, in which this story appears, was published in 1951 � over fifty years ago, yet reads like the headlines of today: Revenge, hatred, justice, WMD, indiscriminate murder against persons who did no wrong, etc. Once again, we see how prescient Mr. Bradbury is. |
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