Essay On The Veldt By Ray Bradbury

What’s a room that conforms to its occupants’ whims? What’s a kind of room that you can obsess over so much, that it makes you lose sight of the real world? A nursery, that’s what. “The Veldt” is a short story by Ray Bradbury that depicts the lives of the Hadley family. The 2 children, Wendy and Peter, don’t know how to deal with denial, so when they are told no for the first time, they start acting differently. In their digital nursery, they start creating scenes of terror, rather than Wonderland and Aladdin, they think up lions and murder. Keep in mind, they had this change in thought because they were denied something they wanted, once. A lesson this story suggests is that technology shouldn’t raise your children because they will never

have mother or father figures to learn from, only their screens.
This is the theme because there is so much textual evidence to prove it. One piece of evidence is in the beginning of the text when the mother said, “You know how difficult Peter is about that. When I punished him a month ago by locking the nursery for even a few hours - the tantrum he threw? And Wendy too. They live for the nursery.” This gives the idea that the children threw such a tantrum because they have never been taught discipline by their parents. They were raised by their technology and the technology can’t teach them such an important aspect in life.
Another reason why this is the theme of the text is this is because towards the middle of the text the father said, “We’ve never lifted a hand. They’re insufferable - let’s admit it. They come and go when they like: they treat us as if we we’re offspring. They’re spoiled and we’re spoiled.” Then the mom responds with, “They’ve been acting funny ever since you forbade them to take the rocket to New York a few months ago” This also shows the children acting badly because of a poor parenting job. The kids have never been told no by their electronics so they don’t know how to respond when being denied what they want. Granted, most kids don’t like being told no, but these kids take it out of proportion. This is why technology shouldn’t raise your children.
A piece of evidence that proves that this is the theme as well is when the son, Peter, says, “I don’t want to do anything but look listen and smell; what else is there to do?” This connects to the theme because the parents never taught the kids that they need to be able to learn to do things for themselves.

They are so used to just having everything done for them and they are so used to getting everything they wanted and nothing they didn’t. Peter is basically saying things that a drug addict would say - in the way that they both would want to just look listen and smell - and if the parents were parenting their children correctly they would’ve known better than to let their kids be addicted to their technology this

much.
Throughout the text Ray Bradbury makes the nursery symbolise how addicted the children are to technology and how much they love it. They would rather kill their parents and keep it rather than lose it and keep their parents. This connects to the idea that technology shouldn’t raise your children because they will never have mother or father figures to learn from, only their screens, because the mother and father really didn’t do anything to raise the children, they just had the technology do it for them. If only their parents raised them more they wouldn’t be willing to kill their mom and dad to keep this room. This makes me realise that everyone should really pay more attention to their parents and what is around them rather than just being so caught up in their electronics. Bradbury uses symbolism to illustrate how caught up in our technology everyone is in society today and paying more attention to our screens rather than the people surrounding us.
A common theme in both “The Pedestrian” and “The Veldt,” both by Ray Bradbury, is that people shouldn’t be raised by technology.

In “The Veld,” the children absolutely hate their parents, “Oh, I hate you!” Peter says. They hate them so much because they weren’t even raised by them. They have never even had a parent to child connection since the kids were raised basically by all the technology in their house. This is just like in “The Pedestrian,” because in “The Pedestrian” the guy walking was in a society that was completely raised by technology. This is obvious because no one was outside at all, everyone was busy with all their devices inside. The man walking was arrested for a reason that is quite pathetic; he was arrested for walking on the street. “Walking, just walking, walking?” the officer questioned that he was walking. In this community it was unheard of to walk. To the people in this society, it wasn’t normal to have a lit up house. These things are things that should be okay, and normal to do. In both these texts it is clear that it is wrong to raise people with

electronics/technology.
In “The Veldt” the theme of “people shouldn’t be raised by technology” creates conflicts. The parents and the children don’t have a close relationship so they are conflicted and this brings them together when they have their arguments. In contrast, people being raised by technology in “The Pedestrian” pulls people further from each other. The people in “The Pedestrian” stay in their homes and don’t come outside or interact with each other. It’s a crime to go outside even.
There is also the idea that technology should raise our children. It is understandable that there are some really bad parents. But even though there are bad parents in this world, it is quite the uncommon circumstance. Not many parents in this world are so terrible that they have to leave their children because they are that brutally bad at being parents.
Bradbury’s story, “The Veldt,” really makes you wonder how much technology has impacted your life. Or if it has even raised you… It makes you consider the idea that technology shouldn’t raise your children because they will never have mother or father figures to learn from, only their screens. This idea is really significant because if we let technology raise the future of tomorrow, then tomorrow's society will have selfish inconsiderate people in it who don’t care about the people surrounding them. All we need to do, is make sure we spend lots of time loving and enjoying the company of our families and friends. If we do that instead of growing farther from them by being on our phone, then we have a bright future filled with adventure ahead of ourselves.