"The Scythe" is a

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

Ray Bradbury Ray Douglas Bradbury (; August 22, 1920June 5, 2012) was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of modes, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, and r ...

. It was originally published in the July 1943 issue of ''

Weird Tales ''Weird Tales'' is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine founded by J. C. Henneberger and J. M. Lansinger in late 1922. The first issue, dated March 1923, appeared on newsstands February 18. The first editor, Edwin Baird, prin ...

''. It was first collected in Bradbury's anthology '' Dark Carnival'' and later collected, in revised form, in ''

The October Country ''The October Country'' is a 1955 collection of nineteen macabre short stories by American writer Ray Bradbury. It reprints fifteen of the twenty-seven stories of his 1947 collection '' Dark Carnival'', and adds four more of his stories previou ...

'' and ''

The Stories of Ray Bradbury ''The Stories of Ray Bradbury'' is an anthology containing 100 short stories by American writer Ray Bradbury, first published by Knopf in 1980. The hundred stories, written from 1943 to 1980, were selected by the author himself. Bradbury's work ...

''.

Plot summary

Through an odd stroke of luck, a poor family inherits a house, the wheat field surrounding it, and a strange

scythe A scythe ( ) is an agricultural hand tool for mowing grass or harvesting crops. It is historically used to cut down or reap edible grains, before the process of threshing. The scythe has been largely replaced by horse-drawn and then tractor m ...

with the inscription "Who wields me--wields the world!" Every day the man of the family goes out to use the scythe in the field, but he notices strange things about the wheat and the way it grows. Over time, he comes to realize that every blade of wheat represents a human life, and that by accepting the house, the field and the scythe, he has unwittingly accepted the job of

Grim Reaper Death is frequently imagined as a personified force. In some mythologies, a character known as the Grim Reaper (usually depicted as a berobed skeleton wielding a scythe) causes the victim's death by coming to collect that person's soul. Other b ...

.Bradbury, Ray. "The Scythe". ''The Stories of Ray Bradbury''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000, pp. 55-66.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Scythe, The Short stories by Ray Bradbury Fantasy short stories 1943 short stories Pulp stories Works originally published in Weird Tales