Analysis Of 'The Pedestrian' By Ray Bradbury

In regards to his miserable depiction of the forthcoming society in his works, Ray Bradbury said that he "was not predicting the future, but was trying to prevent it” ("A Quote by Ray Bradbury"). Bradbury began to develop an opposition towards modernization owing to the burgeoning technological advancements of the early 1950s. He noticed how the world was beginning to hold focus on technology, such as new automobiles, innovative televisions, radios, and advanced weaponry. Bradbury’s writing soon focused on communities where technology was detrimental to the lives of the people by distracting them from their families, friends, and occupations. In towns where people are obsessed with technological ‘life-draining’ inventions and a city where intensely

mechanized houses do all the housework for the people living in them are a few predictions of corrupted societies that Bradbury was warning the people of his time about. Characters in Bradbury’s stories like Leonard Mead, Albert Brock, and Lydia and George Hadley are examples of people who observe their communities becoming too dependent on and distracted with technology. In his short stories “The Pedestrian”, “The Murderer”, and “The Veldt”, Ray Bradbury illustrates the disadvantages of a society that has become heavily attached to and reliant on technology.
In “The Pedestrian”, Bradbury’s character Leonard Mead observes his dystopian-like society in which humans have become greatly engrossed in their televisions to demonstrate how technology absorbs vivacity from people.

As Leonard Mead is the only person walking through his neighborhood at night, he observes that “it [is] not unequal to walking through a graveyard”, and that “sudden gray phantoms [seem] to manifest upon inner room walls…or there [are] whisperings and murmurs where a window in a tomblike building [is] still open” (The Golden Apples of the Sun 9). Mead’s observations about how the neighborhood, befitting to a ghost town, is empty due to everyone being holed up in their houses, exhibit how people had become too attached to their devices to even take a walk outside. The diction used such as “graveyard”, “gray phantoms”, and “tomblike” exemplify how the people had become lifeless once they became slaves to their televisions and other technological possessions. Furthermore, losing interest in themselves and in the external world by solely staring at a screen all day caused people to disregard the society outside of their homes and only concentrate on the fake worlds inside their screens. As a former writer, Mead had lost his profession due to the fact that "magazines and books [do not] sell any more” and that “everything went on in the tomblike houses…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" (The Golden Apples of the Sun 11). In Mead’s society, people had forgotten all about literary works and only focused intently on their TV displays, unmoving and inattentive. The people, caught in a trancelike state, lost all feeling and could not even sense the light that was directly touching them. Therefore, the television had absorbed the feelings of all the individuals in Mead’s society, leaving him as the sole person who cared for people and nature enough

to take walks outside and step away from his television. Bradbury’s unnerving descriptions in the story present his negative views about the television, and how he believes it will eventually ruin human consciousness by distracting people from their surroundings.
In “The Murderer”, Albert Brock’s detainment due to destroying technological devices demonstrates how humans cared more about inventions rather than each other, and how people obsessed with technology are deprived of personality and interests. During Albert Brock’s interview with a psychiatrist, he says to him that “a phone [is] an impersonal instrument” and that it could drain “your personality away until what slipped through at the other end was some cold fish of a voice, all steel, copper, plastic, no warmth, no reality" (The Golden Apples of the Sun 95). Brock’s hate for technology stems from his belief that they take away people’s personality and distort their feelings, as a telephone does by allowing only a voice to be heard, rather than speaking to and seeing someone in person. People lose their identities and compassion for one another and will be prompted to act out in violence or vandalism, their unemotional society eventually being driven into destruction. While describing his crimes against technological devices, Brock states that he "shot the television”, and describes it as an “insidious beast, that Medusa, which freezes a billion people to stone every night" (The Golden Apples of the Sun 97). The comparison to the Greek monster Medusa, whose gazers freeze as they glance upon her, illustrates the enchantment of televisions and how they captivate people’s attention everyday and distract them from the world around them. The hypnotization of the television causes people to lose concentration on nature, family, and friends, and also leads to Brock’s abhorrence towards technology. By forgetting their surroundings and neighbors, people will become machinelike and no longer possess human traits such as sympathy and consideration. Through the character Brock, Bradbury channels his cynical outlook of technology and hatred towards its distracting and unemotional qualities.
In “The Veldt”, the characters Lydia and George Hadley, owners of a highly technological and industrialized house, present how people can become too reliant on technology, losing their senses of purpose, experiences, and resourcefulness. As Lydia Hadley discusses with her husband about their highly advanced “Happylife Home”, she expresses that she feels "like [she doesn’t] belong [t]here” and she wonders aloud if she can “give a bath and scrub the children as efficiently or quickly as the automatic scrub bath can" (The Illustrated Man 10). The Hadleys’ greatly intelligent house does all the housework for the mother and father, and fulfills all the needs of their children. Lydia feels replaced by the house, the technology being more efficient at work than her. Moreover, the industrial developments of the house have become substitutes for human emotions, family, and friendships, as the children no longer need their parents’ care. When a psychologist tells George Hadley that he needs to change his life because he, “like too many others, [has] built it around creature comforts”, he states that George would likely “starve tomorrow if something went wrong in [his] kitchen” because he “wouldn't know how to tap an egg" (The Illustrated Man 16). The accessibility of the technology in the houses has taken away much experience from the people living in them, and they do not know how to provide for themselves. Additionally, the people, preferring to have machines do tasks for them, no longer have inclinations to work for their goals. Bradbury describes how the convenience of technology can distort people’s lives by taking away their relationships with one another and replacing their ingenuity.
In Bradbury’s stories, people had become too preoccupied on new technological advancements that they had lost their personalities, intelligence, and communication with one another. Screens and machines had replaced people’s emotions and jobs, and no one cared for the world around them anymore. Bradbury’s detestation of technology greatly influenced the people of his time, and continues to draw attention from people in present day. The detriments of technological advancement illustrated in Bradbury’s works, as well as his unnerving descriptions of societies that were solely operated by technology, gives warning on what the future may hold.