The Pedestrian by Ray Bradbury Feature Menu Introducing the Story Literary Focus: Setting and Mood Reading Skills: Writer’s Purpose

The Pedestrian by Ray Bradbury

The Pedestrian Introducing the Story Technology . . . the knack of so arranging the world that we don’t have to experience it. Max Frisch, 1957

The Pedestrian Introducing the Story “The Pedestrian” is a chilling portrayal of a society in which people are so isolated in their homes that a lone pedestrian is seen as a threat to the social order. [End of Section]

The Pedestrian Literary Focus: Setting and Mood Setting establishes the time and place of the action in the story. The time is an evening in the future—November 2053. The place is a silent city.

The Pedestrian Literary Focus: Setting and Mood Setting can create a mood, or atmosphere—a subtle emotional overtone that can strongly affect our feelings. What mood does this setting create? On a dark, cold night in November 2053, the pedestrian—Leonard Mead—walks alone through the city. The streets and freeways are deserted. Dark, tomblike homes line the streets. It creates a dark and ominous mood. [End of Section]

The Pedestrian Reading Skills: Writer’s Purpose Note the words Bradbury uses to describe the main character’s house. brightly illumination square warm The words suggest warmth, hope, and solidarity. This is how Bradbury wants you to see Mead, the man who lives in the house.

The Pedestrian Reading Skills: Writer’s Purpose Take note of how Bradbury uses setting to express his opinions. Mead walks through a landscape in which the houses are compared to dark tombs. The people sit like the dead. The light from their TVs flickers over the viewers’ gray and untouchable faces. Bradbury’s setting suggests a mood of death and despair. This is the way he wants the reader to see a future in which people have no interests beyond their TVs. [End of Section]

Satire Satire—writing that ridicules or makes fun of a person or institution with the intent to bring about change. It uses humor emphasizes irony exaggerates situations exposes and criticizes stupidity and vices. Satire is often used in the context of contemporary politics and other topical and controversial issues. [End of Section]

Dystopia Utopia: A place, state, or condition that is ideally perfect in respect of politics, laws, customs, and conditions. Dystopia: A futuristic, imagined universe in which oppressive control and the illusion of a perfect society are maintained through strict control. Dystopias make a criticism about a current trend, societal norm, or political system.

Characteristics of Dystopian Society Propaganda is used to control the citizens. Information, thought, and freedom are restricted. A figurehead or concept is worshipped. Citizens are under constant surveillance. Citizens have a fear of the outside world. Citizens live in a dehumanized state. The natural world is banished and distrusted. Citizens conform to uniform expectations. Individuality and dissent are bad. The society is an illusion of a perfect utopian world.

Types of Dystopian Controls Corporate control: One or more large corporations control society though products, advertising and/or the media. (Minority Report and The Running Man) Bureaucratic control: Society is controlled by a mindless bureaucracy though a tangle of red tape, relentless regulations, and incompetent government officials. (Brazil) Technological control: Society is controlled by technology—through computers, robots, and/or scientific means. (The Terminator and I, Robot) Philosophical/religious control: Society is controlled by philosophical or religious ideology often enforced through a dictatorship or theocratic government. (The Crucible)

The Dystopian Protagonist Often feels trapped and is struggling to escape. Questions the existing social and political systems. Believes or feels that something is terribly wrong with the society in which he or she lives. Helps the audience recognize the negative aspects of the dystopian world through his or her perspective.

“The Pedestrian” Dystopian Characteristics “The Pedestrian” What type of dystopian society is portrayed? How is the protagonist trapped? What existing social and political systems does the protagonist question? What does the protagonist believe is wrong with the world in which he lives? How does the protagonist help the audience recognize the negative aspects of the dystopian world through his or her perspective?

Satire What is “The Pedestrian” satirizing? People’s willingness to let technology control them or drive their interactions with others and their willingness to discover themselves.

The Pedestrian Background In the early 1950s, Ray Bradbury was a young man living in southern California. He did not know how to drive, and he liked walking around his suburban neighborhood at night. Even back then such behavior was so rare that he was once stopped and questioned by the police. If an innocent walk was so suspicious in mid-twentieth-century America, Bradbury wondered how it might be viewed in the future. Then he wrote this story. [End of Section]

Quickwrite

The Pedestrian Quickwrite Make the Connection Ray Bradbury’s portrayal of a twenty-first-century world may raise as many questions as it provides answers. What questions and ideas do you have about what life will be like in 2053, when the story takes place? Write down your questions and ideas, and save your notes. [End of Section]

Vocabulary

The Pedestrian Vocabulary Previewing the Vocabulary manifest v.: appear; become evident. Manifest also means “show, reveal.” intermittent adj.: appearing or occurring from time to time. ebbing v.: lessening or weakening. The ebb is the flow of water away from the land as the tide falls.

The Pedestrian Vocabulary Previewing the Vocabulary antiseptic n.: substance used to sterilize or to prevent infection. regressive adj.: moving backward or returning to an earlier or less advanced condition.

The Pedestrian Vocabulary Vocabulary Activity Use the vocabulary words to complete each sentence. intermittent regressive antiseptic ebbing manifest ebbing 1. The beach seemed to widen as the tide was __________. 2. In the fog, eerie shapes seemed to __________. 3. The filmmakers created a wild, __________ scene of an earlier savage time. 4. He grimaced as he splashed __________ on his wound. 5. __________ cries of gulls briefly broke the silence. manifest regressive antiseptic Intermittent [End of Section]

Meet the Writer

The Pedestrian Meet the Writer Born in Waukegan, Illinois, in 1920, Ray Bradbury began writing when he was twelve. Bradbury sees himself as a magic realist and a disciple of Edgar Allan Poe. In “The Pedestrian,” Bradbury critiques a future society in which everyone behaves the same way. He says that his lifelong hatred of thought control grows out of his sympathy for his ancestor Mary Bradbury, who was tried as a witch in seventeenth-century Salem. More About the Writer [End of Section]