Rain, Rain, Go Away

Isaac Asimov was born in the rural town of Petrovichi, Russia, and immigrated with his family to the US in 1923. His actual birthdate is uncertain because his mother enrolled him in school early by stating that his birthday was in September 1919, but Asimov himself insisted that he was born on January 2, 1920. He became a naturalized US citizen in 1928.

The Asimovs were from a family of Russian Jewish millers, and their family name means “winter grain.” When the family arrived in the US, Asimov’s father spelled the name with an S, believing this letter to be pronounced like Z. This pronunciation error is referenced in the title of one of Asimov’s short stories, “Spell My Name With an S.” An interest in language, labels, and meanings is likewise present in other works by Asimov, including the short story “Jokester,” in which characters remark that puns are the only original jokes. In “Rain, Rain, Go Away,” the family name Sakkaro is a pun on “saccharine,” or excessively sweet.

As an immigrant of Russian Jewish ancestry, Asimov encountered some of the anti-immigrant attitudes common in the early 20th-century US, and conflict resulting from prejudice and scapegoating later became key themes in the author’s work. I, Robot, his collection of interrelated short stories famous for setting out the rules of human-robot interaction, is perhaps the best known of his works that deal with these themes. Suspicion of people of unknown origins and “othering” is similarly evident in the Wrights’ attitudes toward their neighbors in “Rain, Rain, Go Away.”

The earliest influence in Asimov’s career as a member of the “Big Three” of science fiction writers (along with Robert Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke) came from working in his family’s candy stores, where he had a free supply of pulp fiction magazines to read. Inspired, he began writing his own science fiction stories at age 11, and had sold his first story by age 18. His earnings from story publishing helped pay for his education at Columbia University, where he received a Master of Arts in chemistry in 1941 and a PhD in chemistry in 1948. His career included work as a civilian chemist at the Philadelphia Navy Yard’s Naval Air Experimental Station during World War II and, later, as a professor of biochemistry at Boston University.

Asimov’s fiction works are notable for their Humanist philosophies and straightforward writing style, both of which allowed him to blend science fiction with other genres. His Foundation series follows protagonist Hari Seldon, who develops a theory of “psychohistory,” a mixture of history, sociology, and mathematical statistics, which he uses to make predictions about the future. In this way, Asimov freed himself to write about conceptual ideas that encompass scientific fact but also abstract questions about what it means to be human and how people pursue control as a way to alleviate fear.

While set firmly on Earth, “Rain, Rain, Go Away” addresses these questions while blending aspects of science fiction, fantasy, and wordplay. In his autobiography, It’s Been a Good Life, Asimov addressed his desire to avoid flowery language: “I have therefore deliberately cultivated a very plain style, even a colloquial one, which can be turned out rapidly and with which very little can go wrong” (153). Among his more than 500 published works, “Rain, Rain, Go Away” stands out for its clipped, fast-paced structure, composed mainly of lines of dialogue between a husband and wife. This structure helps readers imagine the motivations of the Wright family as they experience the petty curiosities and illusions of everyday life.