Analyse af Ray Bradburys novelle 'The Pedestrian'

An Essay on Ray Bradbury’s short story "The Pedestrian"

Our world development is going a negative way. We continue to develop technology and other things to make everyday life easier. Technology has taken over our world and if we just keep on doing that, our world will be so quiet and lonely. As in Ray Bradbury’s short story “The pedestrian” we will become human beings who don’t know what to do with our lives. We will seclude ourselves from others and become a selfish society.

In the very beginning of the short story, the time setting is represented: (p. 1 l. 9-10) “[…] he was alone in this world of A.D. 2053, or as good as alone, and with a final decision made, a path selected […]”. This makes it very clear that we’re in a distant future and our society isn’t a society anymore. The society is in a way controlled and therefore never seen outside or has light in their houses (p. 2 l. 4-5) “The street was silent and long and empty, with only his shadow moving like the shadow of a hawk in mideountry.” The main character Mr. Mead describes the environment with his closed eyes (p. 2 l. 5-7) “[…] he could imagine himself upon the centre of a plain, a wintry, windless Arizona desert with no house in a thousand miles, and only dry river beds, the streets, for company.”. He compares the environment and the society to Arizona desert because of the loneliness and emptiness. The time setting of the short story is over the course of a few hours a November night. It starts from the beginning when Mr. Mead steppes out of his bright and attractive house to when he ends up in the police car towards “The psychiatric Center for Research on Regressive Tendencies”. And maybe this psychiatric center is Mr. Mead’s house, because in the end when he says: (p. 4 l. 19-21) “[…] but this one particular house had all of its electric lights brightly lit, every window a loud yellow illumination, square and warm in the cool darkness. “That’s my house,” said Leonard Mead.” And this leads us to the main character, Leonard Mead.