(Indeed, perhaps the rainfall against his body is the ‘other men’ he senses ‘moving’ towards him.) Although it makes logical sense for the lieutenant to remove his wet clothes at this point, the other details suggest that this is the final act of a man experiencing hallucinations shortly before death.Ī darker and more troubling analysis of the ending to Bradbury’s story sees the lieutenant’s fantasy of the Sun Dome as the very thing which leads to his death: in giving in to the delicious illusion of the dome, and tricking himself into thinking it is reality, he removes his clothes and thus condemns his body to death among the rains, rains which his mind has ceased to register. It is said that people about to die from hypothermia remove their clothes, in an act referred to as ‘paradoxical undressing’. We might also wonder at that final description of the lieutenant tearing off his clothes.
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