The Veldt

Contextualization Raymond Douglas, known as Ray Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Bradbury was born in Illinois in 1920. He graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1938 but he did not attend college.
However, he thinks libraries are much more important than colleges and universities. Bradbury began to publish science fiction stories in fanzines in 1938.He became a full-time writer by the end of 1942. His first collection of short stories, Dark Carnival, was published in 1947. Many of Bradbury’s works have been adapted into TV shows or films and he is particularly known for his novel Fahrenheit 451. The veldt was published originally as “The Word the Children Made” in The Saturday Evening post and later republished in “The illustrated man” in 1951. The rise in the popularity of T.
V. had a direct influence on “The Veldt. At the time the story was written, many American families were acquiring their first television sets, and no one was sure exactly how this new technology would impact the relationships among family members and this fear is reflected in “The Veldt”. Characters George Hadley: is the father of the family Hadley and also one of the protagonists of the story he can be considerate as a round character. At the beginning of the story we know he is in admiration whit all the things technology can do.He can’t imagine his life without the happy-life home. He seems to work a lot because he wants the best things for his kids however all during the story we will notice that his opinion about the technology will change.

Lydia Hadley: Is his wife and she can also be considerate as a protagonist in this story. She is also well described we know her feelings thought the dialogs and we have a good idea of her personality and her values. The way she acts let us know she don’t fell comfortable whit all that technology. Wendy and Peter are Mr. and Mrs. Hadley kids and they are also the antagonist of the story.Bradbury will give us a physical description of the kids but they are less described than their parents, probably because they just appear at the middle of the story.
They can both be considerate as flats characters even if Peter is more describe than Wendy. Peter really makes us understand that there is a conflict between the kids and the parents through the actions he makes and the things he said. David McClean: is the psychologist George Hadley will call. He is not a major character in the story and we can consider him also as a flat character. He will try to help Mr. and Mrs.Hadley to resolve the problem they have with their kids and the nursery.
The nursery: I think the nursery is almost like a character. The nursery is probably more important for the kids than their own parents and they consider it like something alive. The nursery will act at the and against Mr. and Mrs. Hadley so it can be considerate also like an antagonist of the story. Summary This is the story of Lydia and George Hadley and their two kids, Wendy and Peter. They live in a Happy-life Home.
The house does everything for the family.It dresses them, brushes their teeth and cooks the food. The house also contains a high-tech nursery. Is the heart of the house, a new technology that is able to read the mind of the person in the room and project it on to the walls. It feels real in almost every way, including smell and sound. One day George and Lydia realize that something is wrong with the nursery. It appears to be stuck in an African setting, whit lions hunting and killing.
They have been hearing strange screams and they do not understand why their children would be concerned with Africa or with death. George and Lydia will decide to call a psychologist.The psychologist David McClean will suggest them to turn off the room and the house, and leave. But before turning off the nursery the children asked their pa rents for one last nursery visit. After a few minutes the kids will call George and Lydia and when they will enter in the nursery to see what was happening the children will lock them in. It seems quite clear that the children are more connected to the house than they are their own parents. At this moment we understand that besides the African setting, George and Lydia find personal recreations of their belongings in the nursery.
Structural analysis . At the beginning of the story we have a description of the situation. We know the story happens in the future. We know there is a family who lives in a mechanical house but the situation is normal and realistic. The complication in this story will be the nursery because it seems to be stuck in an African setting. it will create a real conflict between the nursery and the parents and also between the kids and the parents because they are actually the ones who create that African veldt. The tension increase during the story when for example, Mr.
nd Mrs. Hadley heir screams coming from the nursery, when they saw the nursery door trembling as if something had jumped from the other side, when Gorge realized he had forgotten to lock the nursery door or when they find George’s wallet with drops of saliva and blood smears. And even if Mr. and Mrs. Hadley will try to resolve the problem for example calling the psychologist they will not be able. The climax of the story occurs when the kids lock their parents in the nursery. We will see that there is no a happy ending but just the kids acting like if nothing had appended.
Foreshadowing Bradbury uses foreshadowing when George and Lydia Hadley are in bed and they hear screams coming from the nursery. Lydia comments, “Those screams—they sound familiar. ” ( page 116 paragraph 146) Later, the reader realizes that the screams sound familiar to Lydia because they are actually her screams and those of her husband. (170) Peter will said to his father when they are talking about turning off the nursery “ I don’t think you’d better consider it anymore, Father” because he know his father will be kill by the African veldt if try to turned off.Flashbacks We know kids had some problems whit their parents a few months ago. “They had been acting funny ever since you forbade them to take the rocket to New York a few months ago. ”(136) we know also George close the nursery because kids did not make their homework (199) and Lydia notice kids have been cool toward her and her husband since all that happen.
So the reader know that kids have some reasons to be in conflict with their parents and they can anticipate that they will maybe do something to their parents. Setting the setting of the veldt is external and very general. The action of this story occurs in two places in the happy-life home and in the nursery. The nursery is a very fictional place where they are disconnected whit reality and the happy-life home it’s the place where the live the reality but thought technology.Obviously everything happen in the future, we don’t have an exactly date or year but we can understand by the technology that it is in a far future. Style “The Veldt” has a very high level of concreteness. Bradbury uses a lot of description and dialogue to make the reader imagine the story.
He make us discover the African veldt through specific descriptive passages such as “The hot straw smell of lion grass, the cool green smell of the hidden water hole, the great rusty smell of animals, the smell of dust like a red paprika in the hot air. Or “And here were the lions now, fifteen feet away, so real, so feverishly and startlingly real that you could feel the prickling fur on your hand, and your moth was stuffed with the dusty upholstery smell of their heated pelts, and the yellow of them was in your eyes like the yellow of an exquisite French tapestry, the yellows of lions and summer grass, and the sound of the matted lion lungs exhaling on the silent noontide, and the smell of meat from the panting dripping mouths. ” (29) The descriptions create a sensory atmosphere. The ambience lets the reader know that there is a good possibility that something terrible might happen.Because Bradbury will use a lot of dark words like: scream,(24) terrible green-yellow eyes, blood (66) death (66), murder in the heat (72) blood smears (122) terrible screaming (181) persecuted (207) to die (216) dead bodies (230)kill everything ( 231) There are also a lot of repetition for example all during the story we will find “this is a little to real” (15) so real (29)”they look real” (37) it’s too real (38) a bit too real (72) the lions look real (208) so the repetition creates in the reader mind the idea of maybe all what happens in the nursery is real. SimileBradbury uses similes throughout “The Veldt”. For example, when George is in the nursery and the door is opened he said the can see his wife far down the dark and she is like a framed picture.
Or when Wendy walks to the nursery and “The home lights followed her like a flock of fireflies”. Bradbury will also use similes to increase the tension in the story. After George Hadley turns off the house, he writes, “It felt like a mechanical cemetery. ”(page 118 paragraph 230) This description provides a clear image of the association of technology and death. Personification n the text we will also see a personification of the nursery and the house because Bradbury attributes emotions to these inanimate objects, “‘I don’t imagine the room will like being turned off,’ said the father. ‘Nothing likes to die—even a room. I wonder if it hates me for wanting to switch it off? ”(Page 117-118 paragraphs 215-217) and we will see also that Peter talks to the house and the nursery like if the house could heir hi and to whatever he said.
“Don’t let Father kill everything” (231) and “don’t let them switch off the nursery and the house” (256)