Technology In The Veldt And There Will Come Soft Rains

Ray Bradbury illustrates the benefits that come with technology, but not without exposing the faults that come along with it.

In both stories, the house essentially acts as a servant to the families inside.

This is verified in “The Veldt” when Bradbury reveals how the house “clothed and fed and rocked them to sleep and played and sang and was good to them.” (1)

This quote expresses to the reader how the house manages the family and tends to both their wants and needs.

The house in “There Will Come Soft Rains” overindulges its occupants equally.

For instance, at “nine-fifteen,” the clock sings, “time to clean.”(1)

(Analogously?) Like the other, this house eliminates the need for its residents to complete simple chores and decisions.

The

two houses comparably coddle even the parents.
(As the author exemplifies in “The Veldt”,) while the parents’ minds spun with worry, “although their beds tried very hard, the two adults couldn't be rocked to sleep” (6)
As exemplified here, the house not only fulfills many of the parents responsibilities, but also cossets them like children.

This pampering, while convenient, is ultimately handicapping them in the long run.

In both novelettes, Bradbury exemplifies how technology can be used to greatly improve the daily life of humans, but at what cost?

As identified by Lydia, “Why, you’d starve tomorrow if something went wrong in your kitchen. You wouldn’t know how to tap an egg.” (8)

Just as Lydia remarks to George, they have become too dependent upon the technology they possess.

Gadgets are great and all, but Bradbury is attempting to prevent his readers from resting solely on them while forgetting the everyday tasks people can sometimes take for granted.

In addition, Lydia also discloses another effect of the ease that accompanies technology, emptiness.

She tries make her husband aware of the damage, expressing, "You look as if you didn't know what to do with yourself in this house, either...You're beginning to feel unnecessary too." (3)

Whilst the machine fulfills their roles as the parents, the couple begins to feel insignificant and

futile.
An obvious affliction against technology in “There Will Come Soft Rains” is the nuclear bomb, which was a considerably prevalent threat at the time this story was being written.
Bradbury exposes the true setting of the story by revealing that “the house stood alone in a city of rubble and ashes,” going on to describe the desolate city as having a “radioactive glow which could be seen for hours.” (1)
Technology gives us the power to do incredible things, and when misused it can result in collateral damage.

Mankind must fight the urge to be blinded by technology’s benefits and to consider what must be lost to gain these conveniences.

Ray Bradbury aspires for his audience to see that technology is not worth the risk it poses to mankind as a whole.

Technology in a way is used to replace humans and in “The Veldt”, the house especially tries to replace the mother.

“I feel like I don't belong here,” Lydia confesses,“the house is wife and mother now, and nursemaid.” (The Veldt 3)

However trivial Lydia might feel, we see that the machine will never be able to raise a child the way a mother can, no matter how advanced the technology.

Children need to be loved and nurtured, especially as infants, in a way that only a human parent can provide.

Peter and Wendy grow up desensitized to a myriad of things which can be blamed on the lack of a loving, nurturing

mother.
Bradbury personifying the house in both stories only augments to the already eerie feeling one is left with after reading both of these stories.
From simple actions like “the house shudder(ing)” to something as graphic as “its bared skeleton cringing from the heat, its wire, its nerves revealed as if a surgeon had torn the skin off to let the red veins and capillaries quiver in the scalded air,” has the ability to send a chill down one’s spine. (There Will Come Soft Rains 4)
It is unsettling to us as humans, that an inanimate object can be portrayed so human-like, even to the extent that the house represents the main character.
Though despite the immaculate personification, ironically enough, something as simple as a fire, ends something that was able to destroy and outlast mankind.
However, without the humans programming it, technology falls to nothing in a matter of days.
In connection to The Veldt, one can foresee that the children, like the house, will not last long without the adults.
While Bradbury is not saying all technology is all cataclysmic, he warns his readers to beware of the threat it poses.