How does Harry Bittering react to being stranded on Mars and to the gradual assimilation of his friends and family? Discuss how his reaction relates to the concept of "the other." What might his reaction suggest about the social climate of the United States in 1949 (postwar culture)?

Harry hated being stranded in the beginning. He had relied on the fact that he could always buy a ticket home and when the rockets were bombed he was terrified. He was determined to hold on to what he had always known and was even more determined to build himself a rocket home. He sees his famly and friends gradually turning into martians and he is afraid. He resists it as much as he can until the "martian-ness" takes over him. His initial reaction is very reminiscent of the American climate in 1949. People were terrified of communists and thought that they would gradually take over the world. Anyone supposedly communist was to be feared. Bittering was afraid of his counterparts when they began to change. When Bittering saw his friends and family developing new characteristics he became afraid they would change completely. Similarily Americans in this time thought that they would "catch" communism and it would spread rapidly. The spread of martian-ness is a take on what American's believed would happen to them.