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Examples Of Irony In The Veldt

Decent Essays

Joyce Meyer once said, “Discipline is your friend, not your enemy.” Throughout history, parents have used this ideology to ensure children obey and respect authority. Ray Bradbury used his story, “The Veldt”, to make the point that discipline is essential for proper growth in adolescence. He believes that if parents do not discipline their children, it will lead to their demise. In the story, when the parents, Lydia and George, do not discipline their children, Wendy and Peter, the children lost respect for their parents. This will lead to their murder because the children had no respect for them. Bradbury used irony, setting, and motif to show there are grave consequences to not disciplining and spoiling your children. The irony of The Veldt is that the family got the Happylife Home to make their lives simpler and to help their kids. Instead of helping them, it only made the parents feel less obligated to do things parents do. They did not discipline their children because the house did everything for them. Once they had realized what they had done, it was too late. George mentions that the kids are “insufferable” (Bradbury 8) and that they “are carpets, they should be stepped on occasionally” (Bradbury 8). When he …show more content…

An example of motif in the story is the wallet. In the story, George identifies “an old wallet of mine” (Bradbury 7) and that “it had been chewed, and there were blood smears on both sides.” (Bradbury 7). This was foreshadowing the fate of the parents, though they had not realized that, because parents want to think best of their kids. They want to think they raised their children right; and they want to think that their kids respect and love them. However, because of the lack of discipline from the parents, the kids had no emotion towards the parents. If the parents had done a better job of controlling their kids beforehand, the kids would love and respect

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