The Martian Chronicles

   Ok, so I'm just going to give you guys a heads up I'm a huge Poe fan, so this chapter made me fan girl hard. And when I say I'm a fan I really mean it--as in I have the complete collection of Poe and have read it all, so just be forewarned.

    At the beginning of UsherII Mr. Bigelow is looking at a house modeled after the House of Usher. This house comes from Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Fall of the House of Usher." "The Fall of the House of Usher" is a short story published in 1839. In the story the narrator, who goes unnamed, gets a letter asking him to come to the Usher house. In the Usher house lives Roderick Usher who is sick mentally and physically. The narrator describes the house by saying when he saw it "a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded [his] spirit." This is much like how throughout the martian there is the feeling by at least one of the characters that something is going to go wrong. 

     "The Fall of the House of Usher" is also very much a horror story. The narrator and Usher end up burying Usher's twin alive and when she escaped it kills Usher and the entire house collapses. I think linking this story into the Martian Chronicles really shows the horror side of the Martian Chronicles.

   Poe's stories were often what I'd call romantic horrors. Many of his short stories started out with love, such as the platonic love the narrator shows he feels for Usher by coming to help him, and then turn into a horror in a turn of events. I think this is a great reflection on "The Martian Chronicles" because it also shows elements of romance and horror in a very similar style. For example in the beginning of the book you see romance by having Ylla dream of a handsome man and then turning into horror by having the Martians trap the Humans and then eventually having the Martians all die.

   Now totally off topic there is one more thing I find interesting-- Bradbury's obsession with banned and burned books. It's addressed in Usher II by talking about Poe booked being banned and burned so nobody could read them. This is also addressed in Fahrenheit 451 where they ban books and burn all of them.  

The Time Machine versus LASA

The Time Machine is a great metaphor for many economic and social differences throughout our lives and world.  In the story, one place the main character travels to has a very obvious resemblance to a place right near our homes. In fact, for many of us we could even consider it our second home given we spend more time at it than our real homes. That's right, it's our very own LASA.  LASA's relationship with LBJ has a striking resemblance to the Eloi's relationship with the Morlocks.

The first resemblance is that of the placement. LASA is literally above LBJ the same way the Eloi live above ground while the Morlocks live underground. The second is the education level. The Eloi consider themselves, and convince others, that they are the smarter and more civilized. LASA does this too. Many of the students here have convinced themselves that LASA is better and smarter than all of LBJ, or at least give off that message. 

Before anyone takes this as remotely offensive I want to point out that the Eloi are not made out to be totally superior to the Morlocks.  In fact, the Eloi are presented as being physically lazy and weak.  Suffice it to say that LASA is not known for its athletes.

In the Time Machine, the Eloi live a life of leisure compared to the Morlocks.  The economic disparity between LASA and LBJ has been a point of contention for years and only serves to further illustrate the similarities between the characters in the book and the students at LBJ/LASA.

The biggest and most striking resemblance is one that most people don't talk about or even acknowledge: the unspoken, undying, deep fear of the other. The Eloi act as if they aren't scared of the Morlocks-- treating them like animals and having them active at a different time. But there is no denying that they are terrified of them. They won't even speak about the Morlocks without getting frazzled. This isn't because they truly believe the Morlocks are inherently bad, but instead because they know they are different. This is like LASA's relationship with LBJ because many LASA students are scared of LBJ students even if they won't admit it. The fear shows when you see people avoiding walking downstairs or talking about how "different" it is down there. 

For the most part the only stories that you hear at LASA about LBJ are about fights and drugs and how horrible it is. Much like how when reading The Time Machine the only things you hear about the Morlocks are bad-- stealing the time machine, trying to attack the narrator in the story etc. Both the relationship between LBJ and LASA and the relationship between the Eloi and the Morlocks show the fear of the other.