Read the Pedestrian, a Sound of Thunder and Embroidery. What Image of the Future Does Bradbury Portray?
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- Date Submitted: 12/29/2011 01:23 AM
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Ray Bradbury
Read The Pedestrian, A sound of Thunder and Embroidery. What image of the future does Bradbury portray?
In my opinion in these three stories Ray Bradbury’s view of the future paints a very bleak and depressing picture. By disturbing his readers with his stories and views he encourages people to be challenged about the way society is changing and what may happen as a result of the way technology is advancing. Reading Bradbury’s stories gives us an insight into how technology uncontrolled can devastate our lives and lead to humanity becoming secondary in importance.
In ‘The Pedestrian’, ‘Leonard Mead’ Bradbury’s main character is seen going out for a walk on a November evening. He is the only person out as everyone else in this story set in 2053, is sat in their own houses like robots addicted to the television. People were not individuals any more, reading books and magazines had ceased as technology had taken over. Bradbury uses the image of death a lot in this story including using the time setting of winter time, everything being cold and dark.
“And on his way he would see the cottages and homes with their dark windows and it was not unequal to walking through a graveyard where only the faintest glimmers of firefly light appeared in flickers behind the windows.” (The Pedestrian)
Bradbury writes about walking as if in a graveyard and the houses being like tombs. People are hiding behind the walls of their homes like zombies. This has been happening for years with no difference. ‘Mead’ has for the past ten years gone out for a walk every evening and never met anyone before. He walks past one house and thinks he may hear the sound of laughter, but then moves on because he hears nothing more.
Bradbury portrays ‘Mead’ being as an ‘alien’ in a strange land. He appears to want to live a different kind of lifestyle to the rest of the society he is living in. ‘Mead’ seems like he is the last vestige of humanity in a society of soulless...
Read The Pedestrian, A sound of Thunder and Embroidery. What image of the future does Bradbury portray?
In my opinion in these three stories Ray Bradbury’s view of the future paints a very bleak and depressing picture. By disturbing his readers with his stories and views he encourages people to be challenged about the way society is changing and what may happen as a result of the way technology is advancing. Reading Bradbury’s stories gives us an insight into how technology uncontrolled can devastate our lives and lead to humanity becoming secondary in importance.
In ‘The Pedestrian’, ‘Leonard Mead’ Bradbury’s main character is seen going out for a walk on a November evening. He is the only person out as everyone else in this story set in 2053, is sat in their own houses like robots addicted to the television. People were not individuals any more, reading books and magazines had ceased as technology had taken over. Bradbury uses the image of death a lot in this story including using the time setting of winter time, everything being cold and dark.
“And on his way he would see the cottages and homes with their dark windows and it was not unequal to walking through a graveyard where only the faintest glimmers of firefly light appeared in flickers behind the windows.” (The Pedestrian)
Bradbury writes about walking as if in a graveyard and the houses being like tombs. People are hiding behind the walls of their homes like zombies. This has been happening for years with no difference. ‘Mead’ has for the past ten years gone out for a walk every evening and never met anyone before. He walks past one house and thinks he may hear the sound of laughter, but then moves on because he hears nothing more.
Bradbury portrays ‘Mead’ being as an ‘alien’ in a strange land. He appears to want to live a different kind of lifestyle to the rest of the society he is living in. ‘Mead’ seems like he is the last vestige of humanity in a society of soulless...