![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() So consumed is Saul by visions of how he will use Mark, that he overlooks the fact that Mark is an independent human being, and not Saul’s personal plaything. When Saul, one of the Martian exiles, first learns of Mark’s ability, he immediately begins to imagine all the things that the newcomer will do for him-from conjuring images of his childhood home, to allowing him to converse with ancient philosophers. Through a combination of telepathy and hypnotism, Mark is able to immerse others in illusions indistinguishable from real life-a highly desirable power for men forced to leave their homes and end their days in foreign solitude. Beyond condemning men’s short-sighted selfishness, Bradbury’s story ultimately argues that humankind’s inability to share resources will spell its end. When the arrival of Leonard Mark, the titular visitor, offers an escape from the desolate isolation of their quarantine, every man grows eager to keep this new “treasure” for himself-yet in their violent selfishness, they end up destroying the very thing they’re fighting over. In the story, men who have contracted “blood rust”-a contagious and incurable terminal disease-have been sent to live out their final months on Mars. ![]() Ray Bradbury’s “The Visitor” is above all an allegory about the corrosive nature of greed. ![]()
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