The focus on death is threaded throughout Bradbury's writings, and alongside death is Bradbury's deep interest in the themes of deceit, dissatisfaction with the self, the reality of evil and how to contend with it, and the attainment of self-knowledge. As one may expect, these concepts are embodied in traditional images: ravine imagery, mirror imagery, water imagery, carnival imagery, sun and fire imagery, and the opposition of light and dark, good and evil.
In particular, both the physical and psychological aspects of death and dying are examined through Bradbury's use of ravine imagery. A ravine (defined as a long, deep hollow in the earth's surface, especially one worn by the action of a stream) is used to show that like life, many of the things that exist on this Earth change. Bradbury believes that if we can face and understand our own individual, ultimate deaths, then we can appreciate ourselves and our lives to a fuller degree. He believes that it's necessary to "meet and know and chew and swallow death as a writer and as a reader" and to exorcise it from the subconscious so that we will not have to think about it all the time. Only then can we continue with our real business — which is living.
Frequently, Bradbury also uses imagery associated with masks. Masks, of course, are often associated with deceit, deception, and games. To put on a mask is to be able to mimic, but if we put on a mask, we permit ourselves to disguise our feelings. Therefore, in Bradbury's works, a mask is always an attractive but a dangerous element.
