The Illustrated Man

The Illustrated Man is a 1951 book of eighteen science fiction short stories by Ray Bradbury that explores the nature of mankind. A recurring theme throughout the eighteen stories is the conflict of the cold mechanics of technology and the psychology of people. It was nominated for the International Fantasy Award in 1952.^[1]

The unrelated stories are tied together by the frame device of "the Illustrated Man", a vagrant former member of a carnival freak show with an extensively tattooed body whom the unnamed narrator meets. The man's tattoos, allegedly created by a time-traveling woman, are individually animated and each tell a different tale. All but one of the stories had been published previously elsewhere, although Bradbury revised some of the texts for the book's publication.

The book was made into the 1969 film starring Rod Steiger and Claire Bloom, adapted from the stories "The Veldt", "The Long Rain", and "The Last Night of the World".

A number of the stories, including "The Veldt", "The Fox and the Forest" (as "To the Future"), "Marionettes, Inc.", and "Zero Hour" were dramatized for the 1955-57 radio series X Minus One. "The Veldt", "The Concrete Mixer", "The Long Rain", "Zero Hour", and "Marionettes Inc." were adapted for the TV series The Ray Bradbury Theater.

Story summaries

"The Veldt"

Parents in a futuristic society worry about their children's mental health when their new virtual reality nursery, which can produce any environment the children imagine, continually projects an African veldt populated by lions feasting on carcasses. A child psychologist suggests that the automated house is not good for the children's development, and insists they disable the automation and become more self-sufficient. The children are not pleased with this decision, but later coolly agree to it. The children trap their parents in the nursery, where they become prey to the lions. They later have lunch on the veldt with the child psychologist, who sees the lions feasting but does not recognize what has happened.

"Kaleidoscope" 

The crew of a space ship drift helplessly through space after their craft malfunctions. The story describes the final thoughts and conversations of the crew members as they face their death. The narrator bitterly reflects on his life and feels he has accomplished nothing worthwhile. His final thought is a wish that his life would at least be worth something to someone else. As he falls through Earth's atmosphere and is incinerated, he appears as a shooting star to a child in Illinois.

"The Other Foot" 

Mars has been colonized solely by black people. When they learn that a rocket is coming from Earth with white travellers, they institute a Jim Crow system of racial segregation in retaliation for the past mistreatment of blacks by whites. When the rocket lands, the travelers tell them that the Earth has been destroyed—including all of the horrific mementos of racial discrimination (such as trees used for lynching blacks). The blacks take pity on the white travelers, decide to accept them, and abandon their segregation plans.

"The Highway" 

A husband and wife living by a highway in rural Mexico live their simple, regimented lives while the highway fills with refugees of a nuclear war. They give assistance to some young travellers, who tell them that the nuclear war means the end of the world. After the travellers leave, the husband wonders what they meant by "the world", before returning to his work as normal.

"The Man" 

Space explorers find a planet where the population is in a state of bliss. Upon investigation, they discover that an enigmatic visitor came to them, whom the spacemen come to believe is Jesus. One decides to spend his life rejoicing in the man's glory. Another uses the spaceship to try to catch up to the mysterious traveller, but at each planet he finds that "he" has just left after spreading his word. Other members of the crew remain on the planet to learn from the contented citizens, and are rewarded by the discovery that "he" is still on the planet.

"The Long Rain" 

A group of astronauts are stranded on Venus, where it rains continually and heavily. The travellers make their way across the Venusian landscape to find a "sun dome", a shelter with a large artificial light source. The first sun dome they find has been destroyed by the native Venusians. Searching for another sun dome, the characters, one by one, are driven to madness and suicide by the unrelenting rhythm of the rain. At the end of the story, only one sane astronaut remains to find a functional sun dome.

"The Rocket Man" 

Astronauts are few in number, so they work whenever they wish and receive high pay. One such "Rocket Man" goes into space for three months at a time, returning to Earth only for three consecutive days to visit his wife and son, Doug. The story is told from the perspective of Doug, who also wants to become a Rocket Man. Doug learns of his father's constant battle, yearning for the stars while at home and yearning for home while in space. The father has attempted to quit several times because his long absences have nearly destroyed his relationship with his wife. Before leaving for his final three-month mission, the father makes Doug promise he will never follow in his father's footsteps. The father takes off into space, but dies when his rocket crashes into the sun. His wife and son avoid the sun out of grief and become nocturnal.

"The Fire Balloons" 

A group of priests travel to Mars to act as missionaries to the Martians. They discover that the natives are entities of pure energy. Since they lack corporeal form, they are unable to commit sin, and thus do not need redemption.

"The Last Night of the World" 

A married couple awaken to the knowledge that the world is going to end that very evening. Nonetheless, they go through their normal routines, knowing and accepting the fact that there is no tomorrow.

"The Exiles" 

Numerous works of literature are banned and burned on Earth. The deceased authors of these books live in a kind of afterlife on Mars. Though dead, they are still vulnerable in the sense that when all of an author's works are destroyed, the author himself vanishes permanently. The authors learn that people are coming from Earth, and they stage their retribution. Their efforts are foiled when the astronauts burn the last remaining books, annihilating the entire colony.

"The Fox and the Forest" 

A couple living in a war-ravaged future society on the brink of collapse uses time travel to escape to 1938 Mexico. They and others before them have used the technology to enjoy life before chemical, nuclear, and biological warfare ruined everything. Unfortunately, the authorities have also travelled back in time to return the exiles to the future.

"The Visitor"

Mars is used as isolation for people with deadly illnesses. One day, the planet is visited by a young man of 18 who has the ability to perform telepathy. The exiles on the planet are thrilled with his ability and a violent fight breaks out over who will get to spend the most time with their visitor and enjoy the illusionary paradises he can transmit. In the struggle, the young man is killed and the escape he provided is lost forever.

"The Concrete Mixer"

A reluctant Martian soldier is forced to join the army as they prepare to invade Earth. When they arrive, they are welcomed by a world at peace, full of people who are curious rather than aggressive. The protagonist meets a movie director, and it becomes clear that the people of Earth have planned to exploit the Martians for financial gain. He tries to escape to Mars, but is run over by a car and killed.

"Marionettes, Inc." 

A married man buys a realistic robot to act as a surrogate so that he doesn't have to deal with his wife. When a friend decides to purchase his own robot, he discovers that his wife already has replaced herself with one. The robot of the protagonist falls in love with the man's wife, and locks the real man in the crate in which the robot was delivered.^[2]

"The City"

A rocket expedition from Earth lands on an uncharted planet and finds a seemingly empty city. As the humans begin to explore, they realize that the city is not as empty as it seems. The city was waiting for the arrival of humans, designed by a long dead civilization to take revenge upon humanity; the civilization was destroyed by human biological weapons before recorded history. Once the city captures and kills the human astronauts, the humans' corpses are used as automatons to take a final act of revenge: a biological attack on the Earth.

"Zero Hour"

Children across the country are deeply involved in an exciting game they call "Invasion". Their parents think of it as harmless fun until the invasion actually occurs.

"The Rocket" 

Fiorello Bodoni, a poor junkyard owner, has saved $3,000 to fulfill his dream to send one member of his family into outer space. The family cannot choose who will go, fearing those left behind will resent the one chosen. Bodoni instead uses the money to build a replica rocket containing a virtual reality theater that simulates a voyage through space.

Other versions

The British edition, first published in 1952 by Hart-Davis omits "The Rocket Man", "The Fire Balloons", "The Exiles" and "The Concrete Mixer", and adds "Usher II" from The Martian Chronicles and "The Playground".

Editions published by Avon Books in 1997 and William Morrow in 2001 omit "The Fire Balloons" and add "The Illustrated Man" to the end of the book.

"Usher II"

Literary expert William Stendahl has retreated to Mars to escape the book-burning dictates of the Moral Climate Monitors. On Mars he has built his image of the perfect haunted mansion, replicating the building from Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Fall of the House of Usher", complete with mechanical creatures, creepy soundtracks and the extermination of all life in the surrounding area. When the Moral Climate Monitors come to visit, each of them is killed in a manner reminiscent of a different Poe story, culminating in the immurement of the lead inspector. When all of Stendahl's persecutors are dead, the house sinks into the lake.

"The Playground"

When Charles Underhill was a boy, he was tormented by neighborhood bullies. When his son begins playing in a local playground, he becomes deeply disturbed when he sees a bully from his youth.

"The Illustrated Man"

An overweight carnival worker is given a second chance as a Tattooed Man, and visits a strange woman who applies skin illustrations over his entire body. She covers two special areas, claiming they will show the future. The first is an illustration of the man strangling his wife. Shortly after this comes to pass, the carnival workers run the man down, beat him, and look at the second area. It shows an illustration of the beating in which they are engaged.

Reception

Boucher and McComas gave The Illustrated Man a mixed review, faulting the framing story as "markedly ineffective" and the story selection for seeming "less than wisely chosen". However, they found the better stories "provide a feast [from] the finest traditions in imaginative fiction"^[3] and later named it among the year's top books.^[4] Villiers Gerson, reviewing the volume for Astounding Science Fiction, praised it as "a book which demonstrates that its author is one of the most literate and spellbinding writers in science fiction today".^[5] In The New York Times, Gerson also praised the book for its "three-dimensional people with whom it is easy to sympathize, to hate, and to admire".^[6]

Adaptations to other media

1969 film

A film adaptation of The Illustrated Man was released in 1969. It was directed by Jack Smight and starred Rod Steiger, Claire Bloom, and others, including Don Dubbins. The film contains adaptations of "The Veldt," "The Long Rain," and "The Last Night of the World"^[7] and expands the prologue and epilogue with intermittent scenes and flashbacks of how the illustrations came to be. A short documentary, Tattooed Steiger,^[8] details the process the filmmakers used to cover Steiger's body in mock tattoos and shows actors and filmmakers preparing for the movie.

2008 album

A musical adaptation by Samuel Otten was released as a musical expression of the stories to go along with the reading.

Influence on To the Dark Side of the Moon, 2010

A theater adaptation of "Kaleidoscope", with influence from music by Pink Floyd was used to produce To the Dark Side of the Moon, in reference to the Pink Floyd album by the same name. This adaptation was produced by Stern-Theater, a Swiss-based theater company. The script was written by Daniel Rohr and was first shown at the Theater Rigiblick in Zurich, Switzerland on February 6, 2010. The music includes creative use of a string quartet and a piano.^[9]

BBC Radio, 2014

A radio adaptation was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 14 June 2014 as part of the Dangerous Visions series adapted by Brian Sibley, directed by Gemma Jenkins and starring Iain Glen as "The Illustrated Man" and Jamie Parker as "The Youth". The stories adapted for this production were "Marionettes, Inc.", "Zero Hour" and "Kaleidoscope".

Film in development

Director Zack Snyder is attached to direct, at least in part, a film adaptation of three stories from The Illustrated Man: "The Illustrated Man", "Veldt", and "Concrete Mixer". Screenwriter Alex Tse is writing the screenplay.^[10][11]

The Whispers television series

The Whispers is an American television series based on the short story "Zero Hour".^[12][13]

References in popular culture

• The song "Rocket Man" by Elton John and Bernie Taupin was inspired by the short story "The Rocket Man".
• Similarly, the band Pearls Before Swine had a song by the same title of the book's "The Rocket Man".
• In the 2007 film Blades of Glory, Will Ferrell's character claims to be referred to as "The Illustrated Man".
• Numerous references to The Illustrated Man are made throughout an episode of Criminal Minds (episode 20, season 5, entitled "A Thousand Words") that deals with a serial killer whose body is covered in tattoos.
• In 2012, shortly before author Ray Bradbury's death, Canadian musician deadmau5 produced a song titled "The Veldt", including lyrics by Chris James based upon the short story. The music video, released after Bradbury's death, is dedicated to him.
• Post-rock band Deadhorse refer their 2010 album release We Can Create Our Own World to be directly influenced by the book and Ray Bradbury's vision in evoke imagination in his readers.
• Jason Lee's character can be seen reading the book in Cameron Crowe's film Almost Famous while on a tour bus.
• The Illustrated Man himself appears in The Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror XXIV" episode in the couch gag with his author, Ray Bradbury.
• In an episode of the Sopranos (Season 2, Episode 11), Dick Barone while discussing Richie Aprile selling drugs along garbarge routes with Tony Soprano, refers to a man covered in tattoos, as the "The Illustrated Man."

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

• Anderson, James Arthur (2013). The Illustrated Ray Bradbury: A Structuralist Reading of Bradbury's The Illustrated Man. Wildside Press. ISBN 978-1-4794-0007-2. 
• Tuck, Donald H. (1974). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Chicago: Advent. p. 62. ISBN 0-911682-20-1. 

External links

• The Illustrated Man title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury, reviewed by Ted Gioia (Conceptual Fiction)