Ray Bradbury | Lecturia

Ray Bradbury: The Gift

In ‘The Gift,’ a short story by Ray Bradbury published in Esquire in December 1952, a family embarks on their first space voyage on Christmas Eve. The boy is excited about the adventure, but his parents worry about celebrating the holiday in the middle of space, especially after the gift they had prepared was held up at customs. Now, the father must find a creative way to keep the magic of Christmas alive for his son, proving that the Christmas spirit can shine anywhere, even in the stars.

Ray Bradbury: The Exiles

In Ray Bradbury’s The Exiles, Mars becomes a refuge for banned writers and literary characters. Exiled from an Earth where their works have been censored and destroyed, these beings survive

Ray Bradbury: The Other Foot. Summary and analysis

In The Other Foot, Ray Bradbury imagines a future where Black people have fled a racially divided Earth to start anew on Mars, leaving behind the injustices of the past. Twenty years later, news arrives that a rocket carrying a white man is coming, reigniting old wounds and prompting Willie Johnson and others to prepare for revenge by imposing segregation on the visitor. As the rocket lands, the white man reveals Earth’s devastation from a nuclear war, pleading for help and acknowledging past wrongs. Faced with the ruins of their former world, Willie and the community confront the futility of hatred, choosing instead to dismantle the structures of revenge and seek a path toward reconciliation.

Ray Bradbury: The Man Upstairs

The Man Upstairs is a haunting short story by Ray Bradbury, published in March 1947 in Harper’s Magazine. The story follows Douglas, a curious boy who lives with his grandmother, a woman skilled in the kitchen whose culinary rituals fascinate him. One day, a stranger named Mr. Koberman arrives at the boarding house to rent a room upstairs. From the moment he arrives, the atmosphere in the home becomes uneasy and mysterious. Intrigued by the new tenant’s behavior, Douglas begins to suspect something very unusual about him, which defies all logic.

Ray Bradbury: April 2005: Usher II

In Ray Bradbury’s “Usher II,” Mr. William Stendahl has built an exact replica of Edgar Allan Poe’s The House of Usher on Mars as a protest against the censorship that has destroyed fantasy literature on Earth. In a society where all things imaginative are forbidden, Stendahl invites members of the Society for the Prevention of Fantasy to a macabre event at his newly built house, where they will experience a shocking experience.

Ray Bradbury: Time Intervening

In Ray Bradbury’s “Time Intervining,” an old man leaves his house in the early morning and finds some children playing in his garden. Although he tries to talk to them, he gets no response. When he returns home, he sits in the dark, restless. Suddenly, a young man and a girl enter, surprised to see him, and chase him away, claiming that this is their home. The old man, perplexed and with unheeded protests, ends up in the street. During the night, he watches in bewilderment as several people enter and leave his home, seemingly paying no attention to him.