The Veldt Essay

“I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction.” Albert Einstein’s fear comes true in the short story named “The Veldt,” written by Ray Bradbury. The universal theme of this short story is that parental neglect and technology can have adverse effects on children. The story opens up with the Hadleys being concerned about a projection of an African veldt in the Nursery, a mechanized room that reflects mental images of anyone in it. This leads to them reflecting on their use of technology. They call the psychologist to look at the room and he suggests an overall shut down of the entire mechanized house. The two children Peter and Wendy kill the parents to keep the house running because of their addiction to using the house’s

various mechanical functions. The author uses foreshadowing, symbolism and characterization to make the theme apparent within the story.
Foreshadowing is used heavily in this story to lead the reader into making the conclusion of the parents’ deaths and as a byproduct, provides information on the children’s conditions mentally. For instance, Peter threatens his father when the said man tells him that he is thinking of shutting down the house. “‘Will you shut off the house sometime soon?’ ‘We’re considering it.’ ‘I don’t think you’d better consider it anymore, Father.’ ‘I won’t hear any threats from my son!’ ‘Very well.’ And Peter strode off to the nursery”(Bradbury). Peter demonstrates entitlement by the threat. He clearly believes that he can command his father and that his father should have to follow that command. In addition, an article written about this short story delves deeper into Peter’s character, stating, “The measured, almost overly-subdued tone also conveys a coldness about the child. The reader gets the idea that Peter is a very calculating boy who is well in control of his own emotions”(Milne). Peter shows his personality to be unusual and unlike the average child his age. This is because of his lack of human contact due to parental neglect and overuse of the Nursery. The threat and the aforementioned cold personality leads the reader to predict that something will happen to the father by Peter’s hand.
Another topic that included major foreshadowing was the value of the nursery in the minds of the Hadley children.

When the psychologist visits the Hadleys to check on their Nursery, he tells George Hadley, “You’ve let this room replace you and your wife in your children’s affections George. This room is their mother and father, far more important in their lives than their real parents. And now you come along and want to shut it off. No wonder there’s hatred here. You can feel it coming out of the sky”(Bradbury). The psychologist David McClean points out how the Hadley adults have neglected their children, and basically handed over parental duties to the nursery, leading it to have an enormous value in the children’s eyes. In addition, an article written on the short story stated, “This accidental abdication of parental responsibility sets the children up to become emotionally attached to the nursery. Then, when George threatens to turn off the nursery, the children are terrified because now they are going to be abandoned by their new, surrogate parent, the nursery”(Milne). The nursery is compared to a parent and holds this value in the children’s eyes. It is so essential to their lives that they feel that they cannot live without it. Since the nursery pushed the parents out of the children’s love, it is foreshadowed that the children do not care about the parents in the slightest, and are even desperate to keep the nursery, therefore will not have any qualms in harming

them.
The other prominent literary device within this short story is symbolism. The nursery was a symbol of the evils of technology. When the psychologist views the veldt within the nursery, he says to George Hadley, “One of the original uses for this room was so that we could study the patterns left on the walls by the child’s mind, study at our leisure, and help the child. In this case however, this room has become a channel towards destructive thoughts, instead of a release away from them.”(Bradbury). The nursery affected the young children’s malleable minds and twisted it towards violence, channeling their malicious thoughts. In addition, the same article mentioned earlier stated, “Hadley's Happy-life Home into a dystopia that gradually dehumanizes the children”(Milne). The nursery caused all the humanity of the children to be leached out simply because they spent so much time in there without other human contact. This room was used as a symbol of what would happen if humanity allowed technology to rule their lives, showing the worst possible case of what could happen as a warning.
Not only did the room take the role of a parent, it also created an addiction. The author characterizes the nursery as not only surrogate parent for the children but an addiction. When the Hadley parents made the decision to turn off the nursery, the children reacted very badly. “The two children were in hysterics. They screamed and pranced and threw things. They yelled and sobbed and swore and jumped at the furniture. ‘You can’t do that to the nursery, you can’t!’ ‘Now, children.’ The children flung themselves onto a couch, weeping”(Bradbury). The children were so attached, so addicted to using the room that they both threw a full-blown tantrum to prevent the room from being turned off. In addition, the nursery was described as “ both caregiver and an instrument of destruction”(Milne). The overuse of the nursery destroyed the children’s willpower and their logic, so that they would think they couldn’t live without it. In this case, the nursery portrayed an addiction to technology rather than the nursery itself being evil.
The author uses symbolism, foreshadowing and characterization in order to show the effects of parental neglect and addiction to technology. These effects warped the Hadley children into unfeeling kids that were addicted to using a glorified electronic device. This short story can clearly relate to present day, because of children’s addictions to social media and violent mobile games. The young are being affected with the access to unfiltered information. This story warns parents that they still play a large role in their children’s lives and that they must make sure to guide them through their maturity process.