Short Story Final Essay

In an essay (1-2 pages) with a well defined thesis statement and supporting evidence compare/contrast the following characters: The House/Henry

          It's pretty sad when you find yourself talking to someone who's not even there. Whether or not the person you're thinking you're talking to is alive or not arguably draws the line on the person in question's sanity. This is where I'll be adventuring, through the minds of two characters who both hold interactions with people who have passed away long ago. We'll see the comparisons between the two along with how they perceive their situations and what is different about how they act.

          These two characters are the House from Ray Bradbury's There Will Come Soft Rains and Henry from Mark Twain's The Californian's Tale. Both believe to have people attached to them who are still alive. Regardless of any clues around them, they can't get the death(s) past themselves to make sense of any of it. With the House, there is a whole family that it used to tend to, feed, wake up, recite poetry to. It was quite the busy house catering to all those human's and without any indications that they had died after the nuclear war, it still persists in trying to please the now-deceased family. Henry, gives the whole situation a more mindful, human twist due to the fact he has been reliving his wife's last days on a return from a trip over the course of nineteen years. With her dead he, much like the House, doesn't alter his actions from any previous years.

        A plainly obvious difference between these two are the mind. The House was not programmed to feel or hold any emotions towards the family that it was designed to take care of. This is what makes Henry's condition a little more severe since we can assume that before his wife died he was an average, sane individual. Henry therefore has suffered some emotional injuries in the incident of his wife's death whereas the House is still in its intended programmed state, even with the lack of family presence.

        
       Since both the House and Henry have the false image of someone they cared for still in their brain/programming, is this the only characteristic they share? Well, it can be, however  there isn't a possibility for either of them to be like each other. When I say this, I mean the possibility of the House sharing the same mental instability as Henry due to the lack of a conscious mind. Same can be said for Henry because of his lack of programming and a motherboard, he has the ability to be driven crazy after a traumatizing experience in which he has had.