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

The Pedestrian by Ray Bradbury

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 Introducing the Story

Setting and Mood Setting establishes the time and place of the action in the story. The time is an evening in the future—November 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. 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. What mood does this setting create? [End of Section] The Pedestrian Literary Focus: Setting and Mood

re-create a world of the writer’s own making When you finish the story, pause to consider the writer’s purpose. It may be to The Pedestrian Reading Skills: Writer’s Purpose share a feeling or experience persuade the reader to accept the writer’s view on some issue

Bradbury’s purpose is to persuade readers to accept his views on the isolating effect of technology. Look for key passages that directly express opinions. Watch for loaded words—words that carry emotional overtones and go beyond their literal meanings. The Pedestrian Reading Skills: Writer’s Purpose

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

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] The Pedestrian Background

Quickwrite

Make the Connection [End of Section] The Pedestrian Quickwrite 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.

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

intermittent regressive antisepticebbingmanifest 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. Vocabulary Activity Use the vocabulary words to complete each sentence. regressive antiseptic ebbing manifest Intermittent [End of Section] The Pedestrian Vocabulary

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. [End of Section] The Pedestrian Meet the Writer More About the Writer