There Will Come Soft Rains

The five spots of pain are the images of the mother, father, son, daughter, and ball that have been left on the side of the house after the nuclear explosion

What are the five spots of paint on the exterior of the house?

the other houses in the city have been destroyed by a bomb

What happened to the rest of the houses in the neighborhood?

this suggests that technology has human-like feelings

What idea about technology does this "fearful" tone suggest about technology?

giving lifelike characteristics to inanimate objects

What is personification?

The house wakes up the family up, tells events on the family calendar as well as the weather, prepares meals and snacks and puts them on the table, cleans the house, turns on the sprinkler system, runs baths and warms the beds, turns on the fireplace, plays music, and reads to the family

What is the daily routine of the automated house?

that one of the humans enjoyed being read poetry

What personal information about the people who lived in the house was given near the end of the story?

the voice sounds afraid that no one will answer

What tone, or attitude, does the automated voice use to address the missing inhabitants?

their shadows, burned into the paint on one wall of the house

What were the only remains of the humans who had lived in the house?

an African safari

what was the children's room set up to resemble?

They were the people who lived at the house

who are the Gods that have gone away?

the house catches fire and is destroyed, but, at the end of the story, one wall is still standing

By the end of the story, what happens to the house?

in the story, technology continues on without regard to the people who have died and in the poem it states, "not one would mind, neither bird nor tree, if mankind perished utterly."

How is the story a retelling of the poem?