The Martian Chronicles may be divided into three sections (Gallagher). In the novel, the first seven stories, "Rocket Summer- through "And the Moon Be Still as Bright,"" deal with attempts to establish a footing on Mars (Gallagher). The second section, which consists of fifteen stories, spans the rise and fall of the Mars colony (Gallagher). The stories included in the second section are from "The Settlers- to "The Watchers- (Gallagher). The final section, "The Silent Towns- to "The Million-Year Picnic- linger on the possible regeneration of the human race after the atomic war (Gallagher).
The purpose in the first group of stories is to belittle man's technological achievement, and to show us that super machines do not make supermen (Gallagher). Jonathan Williams, an Earthman, is able to fly to Mars in a spaceship without running into any trouble. Once on Mars, Williams is shot by a Martian who thought Williams was a hallucination. Even though Williams was able to reach Mars unharmed, he was unable to prevent the shooting. When the earthmen reached Mars, they expected the Martians to hold a celebration for their arrival on Mars, but received none. As Gallagher stated, "Celebration, the goal men seek as much as physical settlement."" That is the main motif in the first section (Gallagher). Another motif in the first section comes from the phantasmagoric atmosphere that Bradbury associates with Mars (Gallagher). That trapping, the "accident- of his fantasy, produces clashes of dream and reality, sanity and insanity, which serve functionally to underscore Bradbury's desire for everyone to view technology from different perspectives (Gallagher). At the end of "The Third Expedition,"" the Martians have shown no sentimental attachment to humans, no traces of whimsy, and no interest in psycho-drama, yet they are dressed in Earth cloths and Earth faces (Forrester). Bradbury lingers on human characteristics for the Martians instead of changing them back to their Martian selves immediately.
