Ray Bradbury Hates Technology: Analyzing "The Pedestrian" Alexandra Rozanski 9th Grade

In the year 2016, technology is part of our everyday lives, but in the future technology will become much more advanced and powerful, and not always in a beneficial manner. In the Ray Bradbury short story “The Pedestrian,” it is the year A.D. 2053 and technology is taking over the world. The main character, Mr. Leonard Mead, has a daily routine that includes walking for hours and miles around a quiet town until he returns to his house at midnight. Throughout the narrative, Bradbury shows through symbolism, setting, and dialogue that technology can take away from nature and the beauty of life itself.

The one thing Mr. Leonard Mead would long to do is to walk for hours along the streets of a "deserted" town. The powerful symbolism helps the reader to understand how strongly the author feels about the subject. The first glimpse of human life other than Mr. Mead is that “Everything went on in the tomblike houses at night now. The tombs, ill-lit by television light, where the people sat like the dead, the gray or multicolored lights touching their faces, but never touching them" (58). The reader learns the author's point of view when the homes are described as resembling tombs, where people sit motionless just like the dead. It is...