Point of View

Most of the stories in The Illustrated Man are told by a third-person narrator. The exceptions are "The Rocket Man", which is narrated in first person by Doug, the Rocket Man's son, and the prologue and epilogue, which are narrated in first person by an unnamed narrator. The unnamed narrator of the prologue and epilogue evokes the author himself as a character, while Doug gives the personal story of the effect of the pull of space on the son of a rocket man.

Bradbury's third person stories often use a semi-omniscient narrator, following one of the characters as the story is unveiled. This serves a similar function to Doug's first-person narration of "The Rocket Man". In Bradbury's character-driven stories, the reader experiences the world of one character or another.

The reader is inside Hollis's head as he floats off in space, toward Earth's atmosphere, in "Kaleidoscope...