Ray Bradbury's Short Story 'The Pedestrian'

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The Pedestrian In his thrilling short story “The Pedestrian”, Ray Bradbury successfully provoke the reader to recognise that the obsessive use of technology is brainwashing the unique human characteristics while technology dominates the world. He skilfully delivered this through the use of context, setting and characterisation. Ray Bradbury wrote this short story of a futuristic dystopian world in the early fifties, a time when technology was growing rapidly fast which resulted in a technological invasion of work places and homes promoting the fear that people would be replaced by machines. Furthermore, Bradbury was also influenced by the paranoia regarding the threat of Communist infiltration and the subsequent corruption of the American…show more content…
During obsessed the time of 1950s, the paranoia regarding the threat of Communist infiltration and the subsequent corruption of the American way of life named the Red Scare and driven by Senator Joseph McCarthy. This caused people to be fearful of communism, the equality in everyone, and made them lose their individuality. The deadliness of the streets is evidenced by the use of metaphor, “and it was not unequal to walking through a graveyard.” By describing the streets as graveyard, it portrays that the citizens are dead and Leonard Mead is the only one alive, confirming the value of the sign of life coming from the various robots and devices that took over daily human routine. This idea is reinforced through the use of simile, “The tombs, ill-lit by television light, where the people sat like the dead, the gray or multi-coloured lights touching their faces.” This describes the life of the citizens as lifeless and asleep. This shows the power of technology as everyone is at home watching TV and refusing to do other things such as socialising or exercising. Through the use of style, it allows the readers to feel how powerful technology can be and how it can dominate your life. Bradbury has intended to see the danger of technology and the effect it can have on people. Therefore, the danger of technology due to humans becoming…show more content…
The rebellious protagonist, Leonard Mead, is a unique character, different from other people in his society. He does things different, which includes taking a walk at night and not owning a TV in his house, which was what most people had and enjoyed doing. He is not afraid to be different or question whatever he does not understand. By the use of aural image, “push of his soft shoes through autumn leaves with satisfaction,” it is evident that Leonard Mead still values the natural world and wishes that he could go back to it, in contrast to the lifeless, sterile world taken over by technology. In addition, the use of implied metaphor highlights the dehumanised society, “lone car wandering and wandering.” This shows the power of technology and shows that it has taken over humanity. The verb “wandering” conveys a predator looking for someone to pick on, showing that the humans are the “prey.” This emphasises the idiotic humanity as we are the creators of technology and now we are being ruled by it by relying on it too much. Bradbury has intended to show how the world could end up if technology takes over and how dehumanised and powerless humans could be. Therefore it is through characterisation that Bradbury speculates a world saturated with technology. Overall, Ray Bradbury’s short story “The Pedestrian” successfully
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