Shakespeare References in The Illustrated Man

Ray Bradbury’s book of short stories, The Illustrated Man, contains a few Shakespeare references. Actually, they are all within one story, “The Exiles” (which apparently was originally published as “The Mad Wizards Of Mars”). That story begins with the witches from Macbeth, gathered around a cauldron, with lines from the play “When shall we three meet again/In thunder, lightning, or in rain?” (p. 94). And then: “Round about the cauldron go;/In the poison’d entrails throw…/Double, double, toil and trouble;/Fire burn and cauldron bubble!” (p. 94). But the witches here behave differently than they do in Shakespeare’s play, using a sort of voodoo to attack and kill men. The story also mentions Hecate: “‘Hecate’s friends are busy tonight,’ he said, seeing the witches, far below” (p. 97). The line is spoken in the story by Edgar Allan Poe, one of many authors whose works have been banned and who find themselves alive again on Mars. William Shakespeare is among them. Bradbury writes: “A voice behind him said, ‘I saw Will Shakespeare at the shore, earlier, whipping them on. All along the sea Shakespeare’s army alone, tonight, numbers thousands: the three witches, Oberon, Hamlet’s father, Puck – all, all of them – thousands!’” (p. 97). So in addition to Macbeth, we have characters from Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, works that include the supernatural, which are now forbidden. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is mentioned again this story: “Firelight limned the faded gilt titles: The Willows, The Outsider, Behold, The Dreamer, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Land of Oz, Pellucidar, The Land That Time Forgot, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the monstrous names of Machen and Edgar Allan Poe, and Cabell and Dunsany and Blackwood and Lewis Carroll; the names, the old names, the evil names” (pages 104-105).

By the way, the witches are also mentioned at the beginning of “The Concrete Mixer,” another story in this collection, but the reference to Macbeth is not as direct as in “The Exiles.”

The Illustrated Man was published in 1951. The copy I read was from the 20th printing, the Bantam edition.