‘Divide and Conquer: How Ray Bradbury’s “The Rocket Man” Allegorizes Queer Existence’ by Julia Sullivan

When I first read “The Rocket Man,” I was nineteen and back at home during the early stages of the pandemic. It was a beautiful afternoon at the tail-end of May, during which I spent most of my time learning how to paint (unsuccessfully) and reading Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man cover to cover. I was on my front lawn when I finished the seventh short story, sprawled out on a towel with my feet in the air. I put the book down and sat up, struck by a profundity that thrummed beneath the story—how real this depth felt in its honesty of the human experience, or more pointedly, an experience with which I resonated. 

             The byline being: we cannot have everything we want out of life
             and yet we will try, failing time and time again.

But even now, that doesn’t sit quite right with me. I think there’s a more visceral significance here, something quite nuanced and altogether validating. Which could only mean: a queer allegory. 

——

In “The Rocket Man,” published by Bradbury as part of The Illustrated Man in 1951, the titular figure divides his time unequally between extended space travel—three months or longer in orbit—and three day intervals back home with his family. The crux here is simple: the urgent pull of space he experiences is intertwined with his identities as husband and father, all of which rests on his inability to be all three as successfully as he might want. He is called to his work and its importance, which renders him figuratively absent when he’s back home—appearing there, like a mirage, with his mind still in orbit—just as far away, in all honesty, as he would be in space. I thought of “The Rocket Man” last night, for the first time in a long time, while thinking about my existence as a queer, non-binary person. 

I feel somewhat like the Rocket Man. In fact, I feel a lot like him. When I am home, in this case within the reach of my nuclear and extended families, I am often someone else. I am a diluted version of me that is understandable for my family/childhood friends to engage with and comprehend. I am often too quiet or too excited, left to be embarrassed or disappointed when nobody else cares about my passions or attempts to meet me halfway. At home, I am only one quarter of my composite. When I’m there, I think about the Julia that lurks behind—grown, loud, fun-loving, risk-taking. All things I repress within the confines of home and the restrictions of my past. But the Julia I know is there, wholly, outside of home. 

Most of my family has never met that Julia, and, in all honesty, I wonder if they ever will. Most of my family has never met the Julia who wouldn’t mind doing karaoke at an open mic. Or the Julia whose experience of life changed the minute they were exposed to burlesque. Or the Julia who went on a road trip with a theoretical stranger. My father refers to me as a “Renaissance woman,” which is an affectionate label he ascribed to me (note to self: find a gender-neutral phrase) when he discovered I was interested in things he did not think I could be interested in. My mother was taken aback when I bought myself a dress or expressed interest in the color pink. Knowing a person is secondary to allowing a person to come into their own; I’d rather someone allow me to be who I am than “know me” how they want to know me or have historically known me.

When I am home, I yearn for the Julia who seems to be inaccessible at my parents’ house, potentially for fear of being un-welcomed or un-held. I am constantly caught in the in-between—actually, scratch that. There is often no in-between for me: only extremes. I am either Julia or not-Julia. I am either here or not-here. I am either queer in my truest form or something else (undefinable at the moment). How can I—how can we—move toward a “freedom of being,” or what I envision as liberation and license to just be: as authentically as possible, as often as possible?

——

Like many queer folks, my personality, behavior, and outlook is heavily influenced by my queer identity. I think of queerness, in its entire umbrella, as a guiding compass for both me and my expectations/desired possibilities of life. I am who I am largely because I am queer and have experienced life the way I have; developing in a world that was not made for you or with you in mind (which is applicable to all marginalized communities) prompts you to create your own parameters for relation and existence. As such, queerness has provided me with the freedom to explore, change, and subvert that which is deemed the standard. From the beginning, queer folks are tasked with establishing a world that holds space for them.  

In the compulsively heterosexual, male-dominated, binary-structured, and neurotypical world we live in, sometimes it feels like we only know x because we know y. 

             We only know woman because we know what Man is not. 
             We only know non-binary, because we know what Binary is not. 
             We only know queer because we know what Straight is not. 

Of course this is wrong on so many levels but it begs the question of identity: Do I only know Julia because I know what Julia is not? 

It seems that there is a distinction of my queerness as 1) perceived by others and 2) experienced by me. My goals for myself in relation to “freedom of being” attempt to bridge the gap of this difference and reconcile the cognitive dissonance I feel in wanting to be seen, heard, and embraced but not being able to exist as my purest self. It seems, on the double, that in needing to create my own sense of community and existence, I’ve fallen short on how to do so unabashedly. 

——

In eighth grade, I met a friend in health class. She sat behind me and, although both naturally reserved, we bonded over a few similar interests and began walking each other to classes. One Friday evening, I went over to her house to hang out. She made us dinner—two taco boats with refried beans, cheese, lettuce, and tomato—and we sat at her kitchen table with her younger sister. This was the first time I’d been taken care of in this way by a friend, and as such, this Friday evening remains vivid and integral in my memory. Nobody, not even friends who I had known for a decade, had ever invited me over for the purpose of making a meal together. It was such an intimate experience, not necessitating anything more than platonic connection. We made sugar cookies from scratch afterwards and ate while we watched Starstruck on Disney Channel. Her grandpa slept on the couch next to us the entire time.

During my sophomore year of high school, I developed quite a big crush on a friend. At the time, I had neither data points nor vocabulary to pinpoint what I was experiencing as a budding queer love (if only on my side; I cannot speak for her), but it changed the way I engaged with the world after. Previously, I had thought I was incapable of romantic love and rarely gave my existence as a “desirable being” a second thought. Now, I knew it was attainable for me in a new path—a queer path that existed outside of the bounds I had grown up learning about and seeing around me in practice. 

Although randomly assigned, my first-year roommate and I became extremely close over the course of one of our biggest transitional periods to date. Enough so, that when someone needed one of us, the answer was to go through the other, as there was a good chance we were together. The summer before our sophomore year, the two of us met in New York City—the meeting point in between both of our hometowns—and sat in a courtyard in front of the Flatiron for six hours. Our evening was unplanned, sure, but by the time the sun set, we were both astounded by how fast time had passed and how natural it felt, as it always did, to just exist in each other’s company. It seems as if only the two of us, in the city that never sleeps, would be perfectly fine at a table, together, talking. I found a home in this person for parts of myself that I previously repressed and ignored. I found a home in her to explore who I was and who I was becoming. I thank her for letting me be and letting me grow into, eventually, who I would be after her. 

——

Another central message prevails in The Rocket Man, one regarding choice. The Rocket Man is at one level torn between his job and his family, but on another, torn between the choice of it all. Does he leave for months at a time, or does he stay home with the knowledge of all that he is missing? The choice here is captivating and deeply perplexing. 

In Bradbury’s universe, rocket pilots are few and far between and the Rocket Man has work readily available at his fingertips. Although he confesses to his son that each time he returns home he believes it will be the last, he always goes back out. And yet, I still have trouble believing that the Rocket Man cannot do anything about his situation, as in, anything toward bridging the divergence he feels—just like how I refuse to believe there is nothing I can do to be more authentically myself in more areas of my life. And yet, the Rocket Man can still do something; we all can and choice is always accessible to us. Even a non-choice, sometimes, is a choice. But other times, more times than not, choice feels like an illusion.

——

This idea of compartmentalizing, or deciding what to show to others and when, is neither new nor unique to queer individuals. Code-switching is a means of sacrificing aspects of your authentic self to better “accommodate” or appease others. Examples range from changing language/sentence structure to adjusting expression or behavior. Code-switching is frequently exhibited by Black Americans in majority-white spaces where white supremacy necessitates switching in exchange for “fairer” treatment and opportunities, which of course stems from institutionally racist framework. White supremacy exists to uphold white power, control, and values. Code-switching exists so that marginalized individuals can conform more easily to standards set by those already in power and function in a society that neither caters to nor uplifts them. How can we get anywhere if we don’t even know the who we’re doing it for? If we are extinguishing ourselves in small pieces for those around us or for the comfort of the world, what are we left with? Who are we left with?

——

We physically cannot have everything we want out of life. While I want to be universally accepted—free to act and present as I choose; rid of the need to label myself time and time again—I am still tethered to the realities of society. I am not (we are not yet) untethered from societal convention, prejudice, homophobia, misogyny, sexism, etc. I cannot have the life I dream of (at least not yet—this isn’t a nihilist tale) where I can exist as who I am without fear/judgment and simultaneously be queer. Just as the Rocket Man is caught between identities, so shall marginalized individuals to some degree for the foreseeable future, until we as a society do some serious work. But as I said, this is not a nihilist tale. I forbid it from being so. Queer folks throughout history have prided themselves on the establishment (not just establishment, but flourishing) of their communities and chosen families. My tendency of being caught in between identities is of course, as aforementioned, still a choice: a choice to preserve relationships with folks (family, professional, or otherwise) who don’t fully understand/don’t have interest in fully understanding me. And while this is an equally valuable and intentional choice, there is still work I can do to bring this choice in alignment with the world I envision.

——

The queer identity is largely one of dimensionality, namely: 1) a balance between identities and 2) a conscious rejection of heteropatriarchal life. In that vein, what could the future look like if it fully embraced the many different forms a life/family could take? What could the future look like emboldened by radical queer love and unfiltered self-expression? Is it possible to live a full, queer life—one that synthesizes authenticity, acceptance, and opportunity—without as much sacrifice? Is it possible to redefine the boundaries of what a nuclear family structure can be and accommodate those boundaries to lives outside of the white/cis category? As the reality of a “nuclear family” does not exist on its own (i.e. via various institutions/bureaucracies such as capitalism, gender roles, heteronormativity), this may be a good place to start digging deeper and unraveling.

In order to redefine what a life looks like, we must first define what a life can be. What we can do now is encourage and celebrate the multifacetedness of existence—life is beautiful because there are so many varying degrees of belonging and identity. We need to champion that. Only then can we fully revolutionize life writ large; only then can we bridge the gap between wanting what we can’t have (or maybe we can have it?) and claiming that absence (and perhaps the addition of so much more) as our own?

——

There is something akin to reclamation in the queering of The Rocket Man. When I want people to see me for who I am, in my entirety and in my most genuine identity, I let them see me. Maybe the message here is not to choose definitively between two or more identities, or merge them somehow—which could sacrifice something integral to ourselves—but to identify the circumstances and environments that don’t necessitate choosing. Where do we feel most accepted and ourselves? Who is there and how are they inviting us in and engaging with us? What emotions are we feeling and how do they manifest in our bodies physically? 

In keeping a critical eye on these moments, and analyzing them for nothing if not a self-reflective pursuit, we are coming closer to the individuals we want to be and not the individuals we have been socialized to be: be it familial, professional, etc. In identifying when we as are encouraged to bloom instead of be, we reclaim our agencies and resist against the systems in place that strive to gatekeep who we are and who we can become. 

The Rocket Man is not a lesser pilot, father, or husband because of the confusion and conflict he experiences. In fact, it would be bold and unfair of me to assume anything on his behalf; perhaps the way he lives his life is a way that feels safest or most comfortable to him, just as I have historically assumed many identities whether at home, at work, or in my chosen communities. But perhaps, there is something to be said about a world in which we are not forced to think about existence in terms of labeling, performance, or assimilation. Perhaps, living outside of perception through heteronormative and white supremacist lenses, we can exist as the multi-faceted composites we are without shame. And maybe, just maybe, we can bring each other closer while doing so, enough to bridge our respective gaps and those we experience together. Because, of course, what is liberation if it’s not collective?

Acknowledgements

I recognize my white privilege and acknowledge that I do not and will not understand other forms of oppression where code-switching is more profound. 

Many heartfelt thanks to my academic correspondents: Sonnet Lockheardt, Lara Brown, and Marshall Triolo; endless homage to It Came From the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror (edited by Joe Vallese) for inspiring this deep-dive into sexuality, identity, and literary criticism. 

About the author

Julia Sullivan is a writer from Central New Jersey. They graduated with a B.A. in Biological Sciences from Smith College and since then have lived in three cities, conducted virology and biochemistry research and worked as a bookseller. They are interested in pathological yearning, drive-thru architecture, and the color orange. 

Photo by Cosmic Timetraveler on Unsplash.