In the passage on pages 32 and 33, the description of the hound sounds very intimidating. The novelist described how the hound "lived, but did not live". Here the reader is shown how the hound moves around and acts like it is alive, but at the same time it is only a robot which is programmed to do what it is told. So if someone were to programme it to kill us, then we would not be able to reason with it and stop it, but re-programme it. When Ray Bradbury describes how the hound's "eight legs spidered under it", the hound sounds very sinister. Normally dogs would have four legs, but the mechanical hound has twice the number of legs; the reader would find this peculiar. The fact that the mechanical hound has eight legs makes the hound sound very spider like, which would repel people (who were scared of spiders) as they would be they would be scared of spider like things. Ominously, Bradbury describes the mechanical hound's growl as "a strange rasping combination of electrical sizzle". This adds to the grotesque and repulsive picture of the mechanical hound, by giving the hound a frightening growl that would terrify all living creatures. It is suggested that when the hound growls, it is giving off a warning that it might harm you. Bradbury's description of the mechanical hound's "multi- faceted eyes" is very bizarre. The mechanical hound eyes are like those of insects, who have compound eyes, so they can see to their maximum. In the strange case of the hound, the multi-faceted eyes would be for hunting or for seeking purposes, like most of its other unnatural features. Abnormally, Bradbury depicts the hound' prey to have a "four-inch hollow steel needle plunge down from the proboscis" into it from the hound. This is very odd as dogs do not have a proboscis, which has a four-inch needle in it, but a small, short and highly sensitive nose. The proboscis suggests that the hound is more insect-like than dog-like, as it has the proboscis of a butterfly, legs of a spider and eyes of a fly. This is all very obviously artificial. Ray Bradbury described the hound's nose to have "nylon-brushed nostrils". These nostril hairs are very queer, as they are artificially made of nylon, which is a man-made material. This makes the hound sound extremely unnatural, and as humans, we are very afraid of unnatural things we have not encountered. The author tells the reader how the hound "was sleeping all the evil out of itself". The reader can picture the hound "sleeping" in its kennel, unaware of its evil doing, and the evil doings that wait to be done. The mechanical hound's description by Bradbury is very artificial and insect-like, repulsing all readers who come across the description on pages 32 and 33. It is a robot dog which is programmed to terrify all living beings and kill those who are wanted by the firemen who control it. Therefore the mechanical hound is potentially a danger to the human race.
