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Family And Material Characters In The Veldt By Ray Bradbury

Decent Essays

According to David Rockefeller, material things “. . . can contribute a lot to making one’s life pleasant, but . . . if you don’t have good friends and relatives who matter to you, life will be really empty . . .” Ray Bradbury, the author of “The Veldt”, agrees with Rockefeller. He believes that relationships should mean more to people than material things. Bradbury writes of the tragic unraveling of the Hadley family and the consequences of their actions because the parents lack of relationship with their children. Through the use of the children’s reliance on the nursery, the symbolism of the nursery and the parent’s relationship, and the irony of the parent’s death, Bradbury establishes that family is more important than material possessions. Bradbury uses the children’s reliance on the nursery to show that family is more important than material possessions. The Hadley’s live in the Happylife Home, which “clothed them, fed them . . . and was good to them” (Bradbury 1). The description of this house shows that technology has replaced the work in their lives, and the Hadley’s have no idea how to take care of themselves. The nursery, an addition to the Happylife Home, is a room where “whatever you thought would appear” (Bradbury 3). The Hadley children would never leave the room because it consumed their lives. The reader then realizes that the room replaces the parents. Since the kids have no relationship with the parents, they look at the parents like they are only some

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