The Last Martian: Postcolonial Metaphors of the New Frontier

Authors

Mia Lindenburg, St. John Fisher UniversityFollow

Abstract

This paper is a reading of Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles as a commentary on American identity. Published exactly in the middle of the 20^th century, the anthology of short stories provides a unique perspective due to its placement in the journey of American expansion. At Bradbury’s time, not only were Americans seeking to expand out into the New Frontier of space, but criticism of the original frontier was severely lacking. Scholars such as John L. O’Sullivan and Frederick Jackson Turner had made their mark on the American subconscious by arguing that expansion was necessary to form an American identity that was entirely separate from the old European. Bradbury’s science fiction setting retells the frontier narrative by having his characters wipe out the original Martian identity to make room for their new American Martian. This paper argues for Bradbury’s text as an early postcolonial analysis that should not be disregarded as pulp fiction, as it often has been.

Keywords

Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles, postcolonialism, American identity, Frederick Jackson Turner, The Turner Thesis, John L. O’Sullivan, manifest destiny, The New Frontier

Recommended Citation

Lindenburg, Mia (2023) "The Last Martian: Postcolonial Metaphors of the New Frontier," Soaring: A Journal of Undergraduate Research: Vol. 2023, Article 9.
Available at: https://fisherpub.sjf.edu/soaring/vol2023/iss1/9