Ray Bradbury
Literary Critique - Night Meeting
August/15/2016 03:59 PM Filed: Literary Critiques
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Ray Bradbury and Interpreted Reality
In Bradbury’s 1950 science fiction thriller, “August 2002: Night Meeting,” a space traveler meets a Martian. Neither sees what the other sees. The earthling perceives Mars as barren and deserted, no longer inhabited, whereas the Martian perceives his planet as thriving and alive. These protagonists frighten each other and struggle to comprehend a world different from their own.
The Martian states, “What does it matter who is Past or Future, if we are both alive, for what follows will follow, tomorrow or in ten thousand years.”
An altered sense of time and place has occurred, leaving the possibility open that Past and Future do not exist. Bradbury goes beyond time travel in this outstanding story, suggesting that what we think we see is not what is really there. He implies the existence of other dimensions and encourages private conclusions. The tale ends in eerie stillness with both characters attributing their visions to dreams.
Bradbury writes, “Starlight twinkled on the empty highway where now there was not a sound, no car, no person, nothing. And it remained that way for the rest of the cool dark night.”