The Phoenix Syndrome: The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
ABSTRACT
The paper is a study of Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles as a modern mythology that negates the old myth of the Phoenix as a figure of survival. It is argued that such a model that assures of continuity even after self-destruction is re-imagined. Bradbury turns the myth around, as a new myth that highlights the death wish of humanity is reversed in creating a human friendly Mars that keeps the fire of the Phoenix burning but with no scope for it jump in and come back. The new Mythology / New Mars imagined by Bradbury is a literary world and the technology that enables is also a literary machine. These ‘Machineries of Joy’ are the agents of survival by dispensing ‘Medicine for Melancholy’.
Key Words: Science Fiction, Modern Mythology, Phoenix myth, Mars, Ray Bradbury
There was a silly damn bird called a phoenix back before
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