Marionettes, Inc.

1949 short story by Ray Bradbury

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Find sources: "Marionettes, Inc." – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (May 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

|

"Marionettes, Inc." is a short story by American writer Ray Bradbury, originally published in Startling Stories (March 1949) and later reprinted in his collection of short stories The Illustrated Man. In the story, Bradbury conjures a conflict between man and machine and depicts the human dependence on technology, a common theme for Bradbury's stories. He generally creates darkly themed stories and this short read is no different.

## Plot summary

[edit]

In 1990, friends Braling and Smith take a walk one evening, much to the surprise of the latter, as Braling's wife generally tries to keep him from doing things he enjoys. Braling reveals to Smith that he has been using a robot duplicate of himself, Braling Two, to fulfill his obligations as a husband while he pursues his personal interests. His wife is completely unaware of the duplication. He plans to visit Rio de Janeiro for a month while his robot covers for him at home.

Smith, fascinated by this new (and technically illegal) technology, considers buying a duplicate to deal with his own wife, Nettie, who in the last month has been overly affectionate. Braling gives him a contact card for Marionettes, Inc. Smith goes home and finds his wife sleeping. He briefly wrestles with the ethics of deceiving his wife before getting out his bankbook to set aside the $8,000 he would need to purchase the duplicate. To his surprise, Smith finds that $10,000 is missing from their account. He checks the sleeping Nettie and realizes that she is a robot duplicate of his wife.

When Braling tries to return home and hide Braling Two, the robot resists him, expressing a love for his wife. Realizing that the duplicate is trying to replace him, Braling panics, only to be locked in a box by Braling Two. The story ends ambiguously in the Bralings' bedroom with "someone", presumably Braling Two, kissing Mrs. Braling affectionately.

## Adaptations

[edit]

The short story was adapted for the radio programs Dimension X on August 30, 1951, and X Minus One on December 21, 1955, and for television as a fourth-season episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (titled "Design for Loving") and a first-season episode of The Ray Bradbury Theater (under the original title).[citation needed]

In the 1966 Televisión Española's anthology Historias para no dormir, Chicho Ibáñez Serrador adapted the short story in the Season 1 episode El doble (The double). This version makes clear that the robot duplicates dispose of their human "originals" in order to replace them. Rodrigo Sorogoyen worked on a modern version for Amazon Prime Video and Televisión Española for the 2021 reboot of the series.[1] Who survives is left unclear in this version.

The story has most recently been adapted on BBC Radio 4 as part of The Illustrated Man production on the Dangerous Visions series, broadcast on June 14, 2014, and starring Iain Glen as "The Illustrated Man".

It is also referenced in The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror Presents: Simpsons Wicked This Way Comes" scheduled to air on November 24, 2024. It is the seventh episode of season 36.

## References

[edit]

1. ^ RTVE, PRENSA (March 10, 2021). "'El doble', el segundo episodio de 'Historias para no dormir', ha iniciado su rodaje". RTVE.es (in Spanish). Retrieved August 2, 2021.

## External links

[edit]

* Marionettes, Inc. title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

* v
* t
* e

Ray Bradbury

Bibliography (Short fiction)

Novels|

* The Martian Chronicles (1950)
* Fahrenheit 451 (1953)
* Dandelion Wine (1957)
* Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962)
* The Halloween Tree (1972)
* Death Is a Lonely Business (1985)
* A Graveyard for Lunatics (1990)
* Green Shadows, White Whale (1992)
* From the Dust Returned (2001)
* Let's All Kill Constance (2002)
* Farewell Summer (2006)

Short stories|

* "Hollerbochen's Dilemma" (1938)
* "The Scythe" (1943)
* "I, Rocket" (1944)
* "The Lake" (1944)
* "Frost and Fire" (1946)
* "The Million Year Picnic" (1946)
* "The Small Assassin" (1946)
* "I See You Never" (1947)
* "Fever Dream" (1948)
* "The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl" (1948)
* "The Long Years" (1948)
* "Mars Is Heaven!" (1948)
* "Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed" (1949)
* "The Exiles" (1949)
* "Marionettes, Inc." (1949)
* "The Long Rain" (1950)
* "The Rocket" (1950)
* "There Will Come Soft Rains" (1950)
* "The Veldt" (1950)
* "Ylla" (1950)
* "Embroidery" (1951)
* "The Fog Horn" (1951)
* "Here There Be Tygers" (1951)
* "The Pedestrian" (1951)
* "The April Witch" (1952)
* "A Sound of Thunder" (1952)
* "The Wilderness" (1952)
* "The Flying Machine" (1953)
* "The Golden Kite, the Silver Wind" (1953)
* "The Meadow" (1953)
* "The Murderer" (1953)
* "Sun and Shadow" (1953)
* "All Summer in a Day" (1954)
* "The Dragon" (1955)
* "The Aqueduct" (1979)
* "Banshee" (1984)
* "The Toynbee Convector" (1984)
* "Is That You, Herb?" (2003)

Collections|

* Dark Carnival (1947)
* The Illustrated Man (1951)
* The Golden Apples of the Sun (1953)
* The October Country (1955)
* A Medicine for Melancholy (1959)
* The Day It Rained Forever (1959)
* The Small Assassin (1962)
* R Is for Rocket (1962)
* The Machineries of Joy (1964)
* The Vintage Bradbury (1965)
* S Is for Space (1966)
* Twice 22 (1966)
* I Sing the Body Electric! (1969)
* Ray Bradbury (1975)
* Long After Midnight (1976)
* The Fog Horn & Other Stories (1979)
* The Last Circus and the Electrocution (1980)
* The Stories of Ray Bradbury (1980)
* The Fog Horn and Other Stories (1980)
* Dinosaur Tales (1983)
* A Memory of Murder (1984)
* The Toynbee Convector (1988)
* Classic Stories 1 (1990)
* Classic Stories 2 (1990)
* The Parrot Who Met Papa (1991)
* Selected from Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed (1991)
* Quicker Than the Eye (1996)
* Driving Blind (1997)
* Ray Bradbury Collected Short Stories (2001)
* One More for the Road (2002)
* Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales (2003)
* The Cat's Pajamas: Stories (2004)
* A Sound of Thunder and Other Stories (2005)
* The Dragon Who Ate His Tail (2007)
* Summer Morning, Summer Night (2007)
* A Pleasure to Burn (2010)
* The Collected Stories of Ray Bradbury (2011, 2014)

Plays|

* The Meadow (1947)
* The Flying Machine: A One-Act Play for Three Men (1953)
* The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit and Other Plays (1972)
* Pillar of Fire and Other Plays (1975)
* The Martian Chronicles (1986)
* The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit (1986)
* Fahrenheit 451 (1986)
* Dandelion Wine (1988)
* The Veldt (1988)

Adaptations|

* It Came from Outer Space (1953)
* Moby Dick (1956 screenplay)
* "I Sing the Body Electric" (1962)
* The Autumn People (1965)
* Tomorrow Midnight (1966)
* Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
* The Picasso Summer (1969)
* The Illustrated Man (1969)
* The Martian Chronicles (1980 miniseries)
* The Electric Grandmother (1982)
* Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)
* Bradbury 13 (radio series, 1983–84)
* Fahrenheit 451 (1984)
* "The Burning Man" (1985)
* The Veldt (1987)
* The Ray Bradbury Theater (TV series, 1985–86, 1988-1992)
* The Halloween Tree (1993)
* Dandelion Wine (1997)
* The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit (1998)
* A Sound of Thunder (2005)
* Ray Bradbury's Chrysalis (2008)
* The Whispers (2015)
* Fahrenheit 451 (2018)

Miscellaneous|

* Futuria Fantasia (1939–1940)
* The Mummies of Guanajuato (1978)
* Zen in the Art of Writing (1990)
* It Came from Outer Space (2003 book)

Characters|

* Guy Montag

Related|

* Bettina F. Bradbury (daughter)
* Spaceship Earth
* Ray Bradbury Center
* Bradbury Landing
* Ray Bradbury Award
* Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury
* Dandelion crater
* "Treehouse of Horror Presents: Simpsons Wicked This Way Comes"

This article about a science fiction short story (or stories) published in the 1940s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

|

* v
* t
* e

*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template