Analysis Of Ray Bradbury's 'The Next In Line'

Effective works of short fiction often rely on a central theme or metaphor to make a lasting impression upon the reader. This is certainly true of the work of renowned American author, Ray Bradbury. Bradbury’s themes and metaphors often elevate his fiction far above what is typically expected of popular “horror” fiction. For instance, Bradbury’s classic short story, “The Next in Line,” utilizes the fear of death as a running theme throughout the tale. But the tale holds far more meaning than its surface narrative would imply. Bradbury uses the mummies stored in catacombs beneath a small Mexican village as a metaphor of sorts for the completely loveless marriage that is shared between the story’s two main characters, Joseph and Marie. The physical …show more content…
She wondered idly just how much his hands had had to do with the broadening and flattening and changement of her body. Certainly this was not the body he’d started with. It was past saving now” (p. 21). The two characters already exhibit a connection of sorts with lifeless bodies. Joseph looks at his wife, not with love and admiration, but with a detached a dehumanizing criticism more fit for a sculpture. Bradbury may use the term “sculpture,” but the overlying message is clear: Marie is no longer a human being to Joseph; his wife has become as lifeless as the mummies that they will eventually encounter. Marie’s thought process echoes a similar sentiment. She wonders how her husband’s hands may have molded her body into its current form, just as death molds the bodies of those that are deceased. The two characters’ thoughts tether the concept of bodies that are living, yet somehow not truly “alive,” to the emotionless stagnation of their crumbling …show more content…
The caretaker compares the hands of the cataleptic woman to the hands of the other corpses surrounding her: “’Be pleased, senor, to find that difference between her hands and these other ones,’ said the caretaker. ‘Their peaceful fingers at their hips, quiet as little roses. Hers? Ah, hers! Are jumped up, very wildly, as if to pound the lid free!’” (p.30). The caretaker’s description of the body clearly foreshadows the story’s morbid conclusion, but this effect is achieved through the established metaphor that links the cataleptic mummy to the character of Marie. Marie is powerless to forestall her own death, no matter how frantically she begs her husband to leave the village. Like the woman in the catacombs, Marie metaphorically pounds her own fists against the oppressive coffin lid that her uncaring husband has created through years of