As an author, Ray Bradbury works within two worlds---that of the 1920s Midwest and of the twenty-first century Mars. Bradbury's simultaneous use of both worlds in The Martian Chronicles brings together images of the idyllic past and of the alien future in the colonies on Mars. The images of the Midwest in the text signal the author's nostalgia for the Midwest of the 1920s. By uniting nostalgic details with futuristic science-fiction images, Bradbury unites the past, present, and future. This creates a space that he uses to critique social issues of the past and present and to foreshadow social movements. To understand the importance of Bradbury's nostalgia in the text, it is critical to define the Midwest of Bradbury's childhood, to look closely at how the Midwestern details of setting and character evoke nostalgia, and to explore the larger function of nostalgia in the text.
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