August 2026 Vs Pedestrian

Ray Bradbury is best-known for his dystopian tales. Two of his short stories, August 2026 and The Pedestrian, depict different futuristic worlds, both of which suggest a looming feeling that something has gone wrong. The differences in the narration of the two stories help to contrast the theme of emptiness in August 2026 and the theme of isolation in The Pedestrian. The tones of each story emphasize the atrocities of the damaged societies the stories are set in. As the stories progress, the detailed imagery expresses the flaws of these societies. The effectiveness of the two short stories in the way they present their shared dystopian themes is greater in “August 2026” than in “The Pedestrian,” shown by the way Bradbury uses the narrative

For example, Bradbury uses a third-person omniscient narrative in The Pedestrian to express the main character’s, Mr. Mead’s, thoughts: “As he had expected, there was no one in the front seat, no one in the car at all.” Hearing the thoughts of Mr. Mead reiterates the realization that he is alone, that he is does not act normally. As a writer and someone who walks alone at night when he could be watching television, Mead is an outcast, and the third-party omniscient narrative highlights the theme of isolation throughout the entire story. While Bradbury’s use of third-person narrative in The Pedestrian is effective in expressing the dystopian society of a city in November of 2053, his use of third-person limited narrative in August 2026 is much more effective in describing the imperfect world of Allendale, California in August of 2026. Because there are no people in the story, Bradbury was restricted in the types of narration he could have used, but by personifying the house, Bradbury achieves a feeling and a theme of emptiness. For example, when Bradbury describes the house as it

For example, when Bradbury describes the after-breakfast rush in the house in August 2026 he uses such phrases as “the eggs were shriveled,” “the toast was like stone,” and “down a metal throat which digested and flushed them away,” which provide a harsh edge to the seemingly normal tasks that the house is doing. However, because the people are not the ones performing the tasks, how much the people rely on technology to do things that are so simple is very clear. While some technology can be useful, depending too much on technology can be bad for people. For example, when Bradbury describes the houses in The Pedestrian he mentions that “The tombs, ill-lit by television light, where the people sat like the dead, the gray or multicolored lights touching their faces, but never really touching them,” implying that the people in these houses are so entranced by the television that they don’t interact with one another. Their personal relationship skills have deteriorated because of the amount of time spent in front of a screen. This hole in the society is articulated by the detailed imagery used the short