There will come soft rains

That is the end?! I want to know more! I have so many questions…is what I can say after reading this story.

The story starts out with very detailed descriptions of the house to help the reader, myself, visually understand what it is describing. With the descriptions and the story being told in the beginning I initially get the idea that this story is describing how houses will be in the future.

However, as the story continues the house, described as being very modern and technologically advance, is performing all of these “daily tasks”. The interesting thing thought is that there is no response, action, or participation to these tasks that the house is performing. Confirming that the house is empty and vacant for the moment.

Then the story surprises us with a dog showing up that the house seems to recognize. My idea is that the dog lives at this house and had been gone for many days, “The dog, once huge and fleshy, but now gone to bone and covered with sores…”. The story describes that the dog runs around the house as if searching for his/her family. But once again the house is empty.

My thoughts are the family left out of town, possibly taken their dog with them. But why leave the house on with everything running? Why did the dog return?

Having these questions and surprised how the story ended with the house burning down with no explanation of who the house belonged to, I read it again. This time I tried to read between the lines seeing if there was something the Author was trying to point out. However, I could not find anything but I feel that the poem that is read by the house has something to do with explaining why the family is not there.