Analysis Of The Veldt By Ray Bradbury

​In The Veldt, Ray Bradbury exhibits the literary device of contrasting symbolism of the nursery to develop a theme of technology changing lives in a negative aspect. To begin, during the beginning of the story when the nursery is described, it’s described as, “The nursery was silent. It was empty as a jungle glade at hot high noon… Now the hidden odorophonics were beginning to blow a wind of odor at the two people in the middle of the baked veltland… And now the sounds: the thump of distant antelope feet on grassy sod, the papery rustling of vultures” (Bradbury). People associate nursery’s with babies and place a positive connotation of a nursery, however in The Veldt; Bradbury adds the negative symbol of the nursery as a veldt full of bloodthirsty lions and scavenging vultures that people normally do not associate with nursery’s. This nursery also symbolizes the kids beginning to lose grip with family and going from a family oriented life, represented by the nursery, to a more violent and animalistic life, represented by the veldt. The symbol of the nursery also signifies the parents beginning to lose their children and it displays how before the nursery was introduced everything was normal and peaceful but the nursery adds suspense and displays how the technology affected them. In

Ray Bradbury written a story about how technology made a perfectly normal family into a completely corrupted family which is called, The Veldt. The Veldt is a science fictional story featuring a nursery that change the appearance in the inside. The family in the house had two kids named Wendy and Peter who were abusing the nursery to the point of having Africa as the basis of the nursery’s appearance. This was until the mother and father of the kids, Lydia and George Hadley tried to stop this from actually happening and the children locked the parents into the nursery to only die after that. The theme of The Veldt is that relying on technology can destroy personal relationships. The tools that are being used is the characters feelings and actions,

George and Lydia feel unnecessary in the house because the house does everything for them. Lydia says, she feels like she does not belong there. The house is wife and mother now, and nursemaid. Can she give a bath and scrub the children as efficiently or quickly as the automatic scrub bath can? She cannot. Technology has made her feel useless. The two children, Peter and Wendy, are two perfect example of how technology can negatively affect children. They spend countless hours inside the nursery and barely any time with their parents. They are pretty much devastated when George said that he is going to shut down the house. The children do not know what life is like without the house to do everything for them. Peter even says, “Would I have to tie my own shoes instead of letting the shoe tier do it? And brush my own teeth, and comb my hair, and give myself a bath? (Bradbury)”. This child does not even know how to comb his own hair because he has had a mechanical house do it for him his entire life. Through the use of advanced technology, Bradbury expresses his theme when he discloses the uselessness of the mother, and the helplessness of the children.

“The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury deals with some of the same fundamental problems that we are now encountering in this modern day and age, such as the breakdown of family relationships due to technology. Ray Bradbury is an American writer who lived from 1920 to 2012 (Paradowski). Written in 1950, “The Veldt” is even more relevant to today than it was then. The fundamental issue, as Marcelene Cox said, “Parents are often so busy with the physical rearing of children that they miss the glory of parenthood, just as the grandeur of the trees is lost when raking leaves.” Technology creating dysfunctional families is an ever increasing problem. In the story, the Hadley family lives in a house that is entirely composed of machines. A major

The smart home’s advanced technology leads more to demise rather than happiness. An example of this is in “The Veldt” when it is stated that, “They walked down the hall of their soundproofed Happylife Home, which had cost them thirty thousand dollars installed, this house which clothed and fed and rocked them to sleep and played and sang and was good to them”(3-4). The house does everything for them, but it still cannot put Lydia at ease. It also makes its inhabitants feel useless which does more to harm them than help them. Another instance of technology leading to demise is in “There Will Come Soft Rains” when Bradbury states that, “The house tries to save itself”(11). Technology has become so much like humans that it is performing human actions. Unfortunately, all humans must die which is why technology must do it as well. Technology’s death is also foreshadowed in this passage which states, “This was the one house left standing. At night the ruined city gave off a radioactive glow which could be seen for miles”(“Soft Rains” 5). Technology has outlived humans yet it cannot survive without them. When this computerization of a home tries to survive on its own, it causes destruction. In short, when technology has no more humans left to serve, its purpose is gone. Therefore all it has left to do is vanish.

After turning all the devices off, George sees the house as “full of dead bodies” (Bradbury 9), moreover, he constantly refers to it by saying “to kill”, “to die” and other verbs that can refer to something alive (Bradbury ? ? ?). He even asks, “I wonder if it hates me for wanting to switch it off” (Bradbury 8) thus confirming that, despite his words about nursery's artificiality, he considers it a living creature, something that constitutes danger. Peter, protesting from switching the house off, also address the house asking not to “let Father kill everything” (Bradbury 9). Technology becomes the essential part of the family's life, and they cannot separate it from another family member. It influences them so much that they animate it in their thoughts giving it power over their lives. However, it is not implied in the story that the technology is the one and only cause of the things going on. Definitely, Hadleys are responsible for everything as the parents do not pay enough attention to their children, thus alienating them and set on developing an addiction. The technology is a catalyst, while all the wrong actions are conducted by people themselves.

Before technology such as the Happylife Home was integrated into the Hadley’s life, George was in charge of the household and his children were obedient. The question of Hart is, “what has happened to George, once ruler and lord of his household?” (Hart), is technology has taken over his position and the children do whatever they want. They do not care about respecting their parents because technology is so superior compared to them. An example of the disobedience is shown during a conversation between Peter, Wendy, and George; “‘Run see and come tell.’ She obeyed. ‘Wendy, come back here!’ said George Hadley, but she was gone.” (Bradbury). Peter is telling his sister Wendy to come over where he is and she obeys. After that, Wendy’s dad tells her to come outside of the nursery but this time she does not obey. George tries to get his kids to obey him more than the nursery but fails miserably. Her level of respect for her brother is higher than the respect to her father’s. This displays how harmful the nursery is for the children.

To Bradbury, the power of technology spells the end of family, and the end of meaningful human relations. If everyone has a nursery to create his or her own world, there may no longer be any need to have real conversations, to foster real relationships, with real people, in the shared, real world. In portraying the destruction of the Hadley family, Bradbury is voicing a fear that the consumerist world we are building will result in the destruction of the very idea of family and all the values love, respect, loyalty, companionship that make possible our humanity. It will be a sad day for the human race when people pick technology over people. It is a good thing that this type of technology is not around. The crutch of technology in this book is astronomically larger than in really life, but one can already see the crutch forming. The crutch is the addiction to cell phones, the internet, and social media in the 21st century. It will be crazy to see how much bigger this crutch gets, and

Bradbury shows that the family lives in a high tech house when he writes, “…this house which clothed and fed and rocked them to sleep and played and sang and was good to them…” (Bradbury 1) which shows the house does almost anything for this family. The point of this house was for the house to do all the work so that the time that the parents would be working they could spend with their children. However, everything changed when the mother said, “Maybe I don’t have enough to do. Maybe I have time to think too much. Why don’t we shut the whole house off for a few days and take a vacation?”(Bradbury 4) which shows that the mother was getting overwhelmed and feeling like she was completely useless. Once the mother feels this way the parents decide to shut down the nursery which causes chaos between them and their children when they say, “They screamed and pranced and threw things. They yelled and sobbed and swore and jumped at the furniture...” (Bradbury 13) which shows that the family has actually been torn apart because of house/veldt.

Bradbury portrays the children as characters who are inconsiderate of others and take advantage of their parent’s affection to obtain anything they want. After living in the technological house for a period of time, Lydia Hadley discovers that her position of being a mother is beginning to disappear since

As the story begins, Bradbury establishes that there is a problem by stating, “What’s wrong with it” as Lydia senses there is a problem with their nursery; George is still completely blind to the fact that their “mechanical genius” had built them a room that “has become a channel toward destructive thoughts.” (Bradbury 1, 2, 11). These examples show that the Hadley’s advanced technologies has let them grow apart from each other. In doing so George and Lydia Hadley have been betrayed by their own children. Bradbury shows that even though the Hadley’s are extremely lucky with their “thirty thousand dollars” HappyLife home and all their possessions they were still willing to give it all up for the sake of having a better family (Bradbury

would we feel if our personal technology devices were taken away? Many of us may feel like a

Furthermore, Bradbury develops the theme technology affects quality of familial relationships through the use of conflict between the parents and children. A conflict develops over the use of the Happylife Home’s nursery, which allows them to reenact any event they think of to the ultimate visual, auditory, gustatory, olfactory, and kinesthetic precision. Peter and Wendy want the machines to remain “alive” while

My written assignment is based on The Veldt by Ray Bradbury which is set in the future where technologies have developed to take care of humans. The Veldt is a story of a family whose relationship had been ruined by a very technological house since children replaced their real parents with the house and the nursery. It emphasizes the effect of technological improvements and family love as well as their relationship. My aim is to explore how the improvement of technology can affect a relationship in a family as well as family love. I will highlight Peter’s reaction to his parents’ idea to lock the nursery along with Lydia’s honest feeling about the house and the nursery.

Nevertheless with all great technology there has to be some weighty drawbacks. Human relationships is irreplaceable, but that's exactly what the house is doing to the Hadley’s as Lydia Hadley says “ The house is wife and mother now and nursemaid……..Can I give a bath and scrub the children as efficiently or quickly as the automatic scrub bath can” (Bradbury). The children, Peter and Wendy, do not need their mother anymore and it is tearing Lydia apart so much she wants a vacation away from the house that she and her husband bought so they wouldn’t have to do anything. The nursery has crystal walls that play images controlled by the user’s mind. When the parents, George and Lydia, go into the nursery and see Africa everything becomes realistic and they can feel the sun, smell the grass, etc.