ipl-logo

Ray Bradbury's 'The Pedestrian'

1274 Words6 Pages

Technology is constantly evolving, and changing how we live our day to day life. The PEW Research Center found that 68% of adults have a smartphone, while 86% of people between the ages of 18 and 29 do. Technology evolves so fast that people don’t even realize that the smartphones most people have did not exist twenty years ago. Sometimes technology changes so fast people don’t realize the harm that can come from it. Every time technology advances the need for offline face to face interactions decrees. Instead of going to the movies people stay at home and watch TV. In Ray Bradbury’s story “The Pedestrian” Mr. Mead is simply walking and the automated police car can’t even compute why Mr.Mead is not watching television. This is the world he …show more content…

According to Cornell University's Steven Strogatzhe social media makes it more difficult to distinguish meaningful or important relationships in the real world verses the internet. People often spend more time with their not so meaningful relationships online instead of family or very close friends. This leads to more relationships, but not as many strong relationships. Ray Bradbury wrote a short story in 1950 that called the Veldt. This story was not about social media, but about children who cared more about their technology than their parents. The children in the story have a nursery room where what ever they imagine comes to life. One day their parents decide it is time to get rid of the room but the children don’t want to. They love the technology more than their parents so they wish for the technology to do something horrific. Bradbury writes, “Mr. Hadley looked… at the beats edging slowly forward…tails stiff / Mr. and Mrs. Hadley screamed. (“The Veldt”). Another side effect of social media is sharing to much information for the entire world to see. Anyone from a future employer to a criminal can see your information. Information such as where you live and where you work can put people or their loved ones in danger. Many people have their accounts on private, but Ali Kingston Mwila has something else to say, “Even with the tight security settings your personal information may leak on the social sites.” (linkedin.com). That is how social media via our smartphones can have a negative impact on our

Show More
Related
829 Words | 4 Pages

Both The Veldt and The Pedestrian (as well as many other of Bradbury's short stories) focus on the theme of technology taking over life as we know it. While The Veldt expresses this concern through the idea of a fully automated house (predominately the nursery) which slowly takes over and destroys the lives and relationships of the family who lives in it, The Pedestrian shows us a world where people become completely consumed with watching television, so much so that simply walking “just to walk” is considered “regressive” and can earn you a place in a psychiatric center. These stories both issue a warning on how technology - if left unchecked - can entirely destroy a community, whether that community is a four-member family or a city of three million.

Read More
289 Words | 2 Pages

In “The Pedestrian”, the author, Ray Bradbury, uses diction and very detailed imagery throughout the story to set the tone. Diction and imagery often coincide with one and other in this short story. One literary element that Bradbury used was diction. One example would be “They passed one house on one street a moment later, one house in an entire city of houses that were dark, but this one particular house had all of its electric lights brightly lit, every window a loud yellow illumination, square and warm in the cool darkness.” Bradbury’s word choice in that example helped the readers understand how out of the ordinary it was when only one house was lit.

Read More
1156 Words | 5 Pages

Asleep “I don’t try to predict the future; I try to prevent it.” Ray Bradbury is an author of many works, of which include The Pedestrian, There Will Come Soft Rains, A Sound of Thunder, and The Veldt. In these texts, there is a theme of a futuristic reality where destruction is to occur which might not be that far off from our own. This is purposeful, Bradbury claims to use his writing as a message to the masses calling them to open their eyes to the direction our world is hurdling towards. These texts deal with warnings of losing touch with the natural world and other humans, devaluing life, an increase in disastrous irresponsibility, and the most prominent being the abuse of technological advancements.

Read More
1486 Words | 6 Pages

In addition, Mr. Mead in “The Pedestrian” demonstrates great personal desires to “walk for hours and miles” that clash with what the highly structured television based “city of three million” people that resembles “gray phantoms” that “stay inside the tomb-like buildings” as a requirement Mr. Mead does not follow. A “viewing screen” or better known as a television is a fantastic example of the difference between Mr. Leonard Mead and the gray phantoms. Which is better demonstrated when the “police voice that was behind the fiery beam” questioned the protagonist and also critically judges him due to the fact that Mr. Mead does not own a “viewing screen”. As the viewing screen is a representation of what technology and humanity has come to be.

Read More
681 Words | 3 Pages

In Fahrenheit 451, and “The Pedestrian”, even though the societies see technology as beneficial, it is the main problem in their life. In Fahrenheit 451, Mildred is a good example of how harmful technology in their world is. For example, Montag asks Mildred, if she could turn her viewing screen off for a sick man, but she only replies to turn it down , calling the screen her “family,” (Bradbury 52). Mildred and other people in this society don’t really pay attention to their real family members, instead they just spend time with their viewing screen. In addition, Montag later states,”

Read More
342 Words | 2 Pages

In the world, one of the most vicious places is the veldt of Africa. There is death everywhere and it is very corrupt. A child’s imagination can be like this without the loving protection of a family. This supports the statement, the absence of family leads to a lack of discipline. In The Veldt by Ray Bradbury, this is told by similes and imagery of the veldt.

Read More
1027 Words | 5 Pages

Technology is at the center of all of Ray Bradbury's stories. He shows the good, the bad, and the ugly. Bradbury's main goal is to show what will happen if technology continues to advance at the rapid speeds it is going at. In the four Bradbury stories; "The Pedestrian", "There Will Come Soft Rains", "A Sound of Thunder", and "The Veldt", they all have one main topic, and that is technology. As Bradbury once said, "I don't try to describe the future.

Read More
673 Words | 3 Pages

The police car’s metallic whisper asks, “What are you doing out?... Walking where?... For what?” (“The Pedestrian” 2). The “whisper” is, in a sense, awestruck, surprised to notice Mr. Mead walking around all alone.

Read More
1163 Words | 5 Pages

In “The Pedestrian” by Ray Bradbury, Leonard Mead comes in contact with a strange police car. The police car had the ability to possess human-like intelligence, for instance, “A metallic voice called to him: Stand still! Ever since a year ago, in 2052, the election year, the force had been cut down from three cars to one,” this emphasizes how the police car is controlled by technology (Bradbury 1). This statement also represents the crime rate within the city. It depicts a low crime rate due to people being stuck in their houses.

Read More
719 Words | 3 Pages

Keira Calloway Dr.Pezzelle Composition I March 30, 2023 The Veldt Essay “The Veldt” (1950) by Ray Bradbury is a story about a family living in a HappyLife Home, which is a home with technology that does everything for the family. George and Lydia spoiled and never followed through with disciplining Peter and Wendy so that the children don’t see their parents as authority figures. George and Lydia are worried that the family depends on the Happylife Home too much, the children aren’t too happy about this news and are willing to do anything to keep the house on. “The Veldt” exposes monstrousness through the parents.

Read More
471 Words | 2 Pages

The Pedestrian Thesis: In a short story titled “The Pedestrian”, written by Ray Bradbury, Bradbury uses the setting to display a lonely, sad mood and person vs society conflict as he battles the lonely streets. Bradbury shows the lonely mood by having the character walk alone in the empty streets. Bradbury wasted no time describing the streets as silent and misty making for a very lonely mood. Mead, the main character, walks along the streets alone with no sign of life, saying “he would see cottages and homes with their dark windows, and it was not unequal to walking through a graveyard where the faintest light is a flicker of a firefly” Bradbury’s quote shows how empty and lonely the streets are by referring to them as a

Read More
1595 Words | 7 Pages

Bradbury guides the reader to the conclusion that families fall apart when they spend too much time with technology and not enough time with each other. ‘The Veldt” is more applicable in today’s technology-driven world than when it was written in 1950. The reader hopefully learns that technology must be limited and not replace human interaction and hard work. If technology does everything for people, then people become unnecessary. Family roles should not be taken over by computers and robots.

Read More
460 Words | 2 Pages

In the science fiction short story "The Pedestrian" by Ray Bradbury, the author makes a statement about the effects of technological advancements on society. The statement is that if mankind advances to the point where society loses its humanity, then mankind may as well cease to exist. I agree with this statement because if people lose their humanity, they lose the reason for living. In the short story, the main character, Leonard Mead, is in a technological advanced society, where technology is replaced in people's interactions with others, leading them to becoming inhumane. I agree that if people live in a technologically advanced world, then people should no longer live .

Read More
876 Words | 4 Pages

The "Pedestrian" is a futuristic story about a man who is not involved with the world. Bradbury uses setting, figurative language, and symbolism to affect the overall succession of the story. First, Bradbury uses figurative language to portray the negative view of technology on people. He uses similes to show how people are affected. For example, "But now these highways, too, were like streams in a dry season all stone and bed and moon radiance.

Read More
165 Words | 1 Pages

In Ray Bradbury’s short story “The Pedestrian”, the motifs of the story were appeared a lot of times. Motifs always repeat in the story and give a dominant central idea to strengthen the theme. By reading the motifs in the story, we could learn more about the things that the writer wants to tell us. In this story, there are lots of words of motifs; for examples, silence, alone, darkness, empty and frozen. Those motifs shows the lacking of inspiration and excitement in the story and determines the dark keynote of the story.

Read More

More about Ray Bradbury's 'The Pedestrian'

Open Document