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What's the tone of "There Will Come Soft Rains"?

I think that the tone of this short story shifts during the story.  In the beginning of the story, the tone is one of loneliness.  The house in the story is smart, but Bradbury has given the house an emotional base as well.  The house knows that something is wrong, and it is worried about the absence of the people.  The house feels lonely, and that tone is carried out in how the house keeps asking its questions despite never being answered.  That tone moves from loneliness to fear as the house realizes that it is alone. 



Until this day, how well the house had kept its peace. How carefully it had inquired, "Who goes there? What's the password?" and, getting no answer from lonely foxes and whining cats, it had shut up its windows and drawn shades in an old maidenly preoccupation with self-protection which bordered on a mechanical paranoia.


It quivered at each sound, the house did. If a sparrow brushed a window, the shade snapped up. The bird, startled, flew off! No, not even a bird must touch the house!



Near the end of the story, the tone shifts to a frantic tone.  The house is still afraid, but the fire causes the house to frantically try and preserve itself.  The house throws everything it can think of at the fire.  



The house gave ground as the fire in ten billion angry sparks moved with flaming ease from room to room and then up the stairs. While scurrying water rats squeaked from the walls, pistoled their water, and ran for more. And the wall sprays let down showers of mechanical rain.



The house becomes desperate in its attempts to save itself until the house itself is on its deathbed. The closing paragraph is a melancholic and sorrowful paragraph.  The house fought hard, but in the end it still failed.  I think the tone of the final paragraph shows a tone of futility too.  



Dawn showed faintly in the east. Among the ruins, one wall stood alone. Within the wall, a last voice said, over and over again and again, even as the sun rose to shine upon the heaped rubble and steam:


"Today is August 5, 2026, today is August 5, 2026, today is…"


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