Technology In Ray Bradbury's 'The Pedestrian'

Society has made many vast advances over the past 50 years. Technology is one of the biggest industries that has made the most dramatic changes. Everyone loves new technology, so much that it almost takes over his or her lives. Ray Bradbury is a sci-fi author that seemed to have predicted the future of society and technology in his short stories. In most of his short stories, however, he criticizes what technology can become, and recognizes the problematic effects that can come with too much technology. Through Ray Bradbury’s short stories, he makes it apparent that his concerns with technology and modern day society are that technology has the ability to isolate people, advancing too fast can have catastrophic consequences and society could

dehumanize society using technology.
First, in Ray Bradbury’s short story, “The Pedestrian”, he expresses his apprehensions with society just focusing on screens and isolating themselves from other faces.

The protagonist in the story, Leonard Mead, just likes to walk to get some air, while everyone else is trapped in their houses. “’Hello in there’, he whispered to every house on each side as he moved. ‘What’s up tonight on channel 4, channel 7, channel 9?’… In ten years of walking by night or day, for thousands of miles, he never met another person walking, not one in all that time” (Bradbury 98). Leonard mocks the people inside, trapped, because they aren’t living. The people have separated themselves from the rest of the world, and only focused on technology. Leonard walks around and gets away from the depressed life, and no one else seems to go outside. Leonard never once saw another human being not incased by technology enough to take a walk. Bradbury shows his concerns that too much technology has taken over people’s ways to live and see other human faces again. Later in the story, while Leonard is walking, a policeman stops him. The police man starts the conversation, “‘What are you doing out?’ ‘Walking’, said Leonard Mead, ‘Walking!’ ‘Just walking’, he said simply, but his face felt cold… ‘Walking where? For what?’ ‘Walking for air. Walking to see’…’And you have a viewing screen in your house to see with?’ ‘No.’ ‘No?’ There was a crackling quiet that in itself was an accusation” (Bradbury 99-100). Mr. Mead is considered an outlier in Ray Bradbury present-day society. In a lot of Bradbury’s stories he has an outlier, who Bradbury always seems to agree with, by contrasting them to the ridiculousness of his predictions for the future of society. Leonard Mead represents the average person in society who walks around and tries to enjoy life, however, he was stopped by a police officer because everyone else in society isolates themselves and only cares about their “viewing screen”. No one in their

society walks around or talks to other people any more, so it is considered suspicious if you just to walk for air. This demonstrates Bradbury’s concerns that the simple things, like conversing with other people, may become lost in the whirlwind of technology.
Next, “A Sound of Thunder” is an example of how Bradbury thinks that advancing technology too quickly and giving too much power to people, without knowing how potentially dangerous it is, could ruin life as we know it. In the story, the main characters are using a time machine, which is a technology that could change history forever. When Travis was giving his speech about the dangers of time travel, it says, “’Crushing certain plants could add up infinitesimally. A little error here would multiply in sixty million years, all out of proportion’” (Bradbury 75). Bradbury believes that technological advances are extremely dangerous, because since he is in favor of evolution, he knows that one small mistake in the use of one piece of technology, can ruin the future and make things worse. Humans are not ready for having the responsibility and technology advances to fast for humans to keep up with and maintain order and regulate rules. It concerns Bradbury that technology advances so quickly and seems so seemingly essential at the time, even though in the long run there could be a detrimental error. Then, soon after, the worst thing that could possibly happen the story, happened. Travis’ speech foreshadows Eckels stepping on a butterfly and ruining life as they knew it. Eckels did not even seem to be upset about stepping off the path, all he thought was that he got a little mud on his shoes. Eckels cried, “Don’t look at me. I haven’t done anything”… “Just ran off the Path, that’s all, a little mud on my shoes- what do you want me to do-get down and pray?” (Bradbury 80). This shows the carelessness of humans with too much power. With great power comes great responsibility, and in the story since humans are naturally imperfect, one reckless decision changed life for the worse. Before Eckels was irresponsible with the technology of the time machine, they had a great president, president Keith. However, after his mistake they were left with a leader, Deuschter, who was much like Hitler. Bradbury wants to get his message across that technology advanced too fast to be appreciated and taken good care of, and with one misstep technology has the power to come crashing down.
Lastly, the short story, “There will Come Soft Rains” demonstrates what Bradbury thinks will happen in the present day society, when and if technology replaces humanity altogether, creating immense problems. In the story, the house with all its technology ended up outliving the humans that created it in a nuclear disaster. The house had so much technology it operated without humans, but without humans, the technology is useless. When the house was talking Bradbury stated, “’Eight-one, tick-tock, eight-one o’clock, off to school, off to work, run, run, eight-one!’ But no doors slammed, no carpets took the soft tread of rubber heals” (Bradbury 88). The technology in the house was made to help humans, not to completely replace them, but that’s what happened in Bradbury’s society. The technology may become overwhelming and do tasks to make humans lives easier, but without humans, there is no reason to do anything, therefore replacing humans altogether with technology would never work because there becomes no purpose for the technology anymore. Bradbury believes that humans are needed much more than technology because they can operate on their own and have a brain to think over problems. Next, in the story the house ended up catching on fire and did not know what to do. Bradbury states, “The house tried to save itself… The house shuddered, oak bone on bone, its bared skeleton cringing from the heat, its wire, it nerves revealed as if a surgeon had torn the skin off to let the red veins and capillaries quiver in the scalded air” (Bradbury 92). The technology did everything it knew how to do, but that wasn’t enough. Humans are able to think of new ideas and problem solve, while technology only knows what it is programmed to do with humans. The house cannot save itself because the house does not have a brain. Bradbury wants to display how humans are far more functional and smarter than all of the technology can create and trying to replace humans will never be able to work nor, will society wants it to work.
Ray Bradbury’s tone in all three of his short stories illustrates his feelings that future society will be isolated by technology, advance to far to be out of control, and these advancements can dehumanize society. These stories were written around the 1960s, when the television and other types of technology were fairly new. Ray Bradbury was able to predict some of the trends in modern day society today. However, some of his ideas are more extreme than what is happening right now. If we are to progress as fast as Bradbury fears, could all of his predictions become reality?