MC from Samantha Kloft

Martian Chronicles

In Ray Bradbury”s, Martian Chronicles, Mars is constantly being colonized by the people of Earth in similar ways that the Americas were colonized by the Europeans in the mid-15^th century. Starting in January of 1999, the first of four expeditions that were sent out to Mars launched off from Earth. Comparable to the colonization of the Americas, the first expeditions were led by explorers who were in search of new land and better beginnings. Once arriving on Mars, the people of Earth and the Martians treated each other as outsiders and seemed to, for the most part, seclude themselves from each other’s presence just like the first interactions between the Native Americans and the Europeans. As tension grew stronger on Earth due to the atomic war, more and more people continued to travel to Mars, which shorty became their New World. As more Americans came, diseases such as chickenpox spread quickly throughout Mars which killed off a majority of the Martian population. This is most recognizable in the spread of smallpox from the Europeans to the Native Americans which also concluded in similar results. The order in which people came to Mars is also parallel to that of the Americas. First came the explorers and the founders who established a presence on the new planet. Next came the sophisticates and business men with their rules and established laws for Mars, followed by the everyday families and the elderly who populated the residential areas and completed the communities similar to earth. Following colonization, many people came to realize that they came to Mars because of its’ uniqueness and lawlessness compared to Earth and that now this New World that everyone sought for was nothing more than a recreation of their homeland.