Summary Of The Pedestrian By Ray Bradbury

In “The Pedestrian”, author Ray Bradbury suggests that our future society is one that becomes devoid of humanity where people will not accept anything that is out of the norm. The story starts off in the world of a man named Mr. Leonard Mead who loves to take walks outside at night. His whole community is a depiction of our world today where people choose to stay inside their homes and connect with a flatscreen TV instead of venturing outside. On night, while Mr. Mead takes his nightly evening strolls alone, Bradbury writes, “And on his way he would see the cottages and homes with their dark windows, and it was not unequal to walking through a graveyard… Sudden gray phantoms seemed to manifest themselves upon inner room walls where a curtain was still undrawn against the night…” (Bradbury 49). Mr. Leonard Mead pays close attention to his surroundings and notes that it is “not

When Mr. Mead’s walk is coming to an end, a police car stops Mr. Mead and asks him why he is walking alone at night. The monotone built-in voice continues asking, “But you haven’t explained for what purpose” (50). After Mr. Mead’s repeatedly explains that he’s walking just because it is something he loves to do, he gets taken away to a “Psychiatric Center for Research on Regressive Tendencies” (50). It is obvious that people no longer do activities as simple as just enjoying a walk outside for it is seen as absurd by the rest of society. They see the action of preserving old ways of life as “regressive tendencies” that must be destroyed immediately. Mr. Mead is essentially the last spark of warmth left in this bleak community as the author writes, “They passed one house on one street a moment later, one house in an entire city of houses that were dark, but this one house had all its electric lights brightly lit, every window a loud yellow illumination, square and warm in the cool