Analysis of The Pedestrian by Ray Bradbury

 

             The Pedestrian, published in 1951, is a dystopian science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury. This story follows Leonard Mead in the year 2053 in a society where the norm is to stay home during free time, staying glued to the television with no human interactions. Leonard Mead is different though. Every night, he goes outside and takes a walk, something he loves to do. He enjoys going out for the fresh air, to just look at nature, and walk. When he goes on his walks, he is the absolute only person out there. He has never seen anyone else outside and as he walks by houses, he sees complete darkness besides the glowing light casted from the televisions. The street is always silent and empty at this time. However, during the day, the highways are always bustling with many cars and people going to work, but by night, it’s completely empty. 

One day as Mr. Leonard Mead is going on one of his nightly strolls, he is stopped by a police car (the only one in the city since crime rarely happens.) The police car (who is later revealed to have no driver) questions Mr. Mead and shortly after, decides he belongs at the “Psychiatric Center for Research on Regressive tendencies” for his strange, unusual behavior and lifestyle.

This story presents many topics that are still relevant to today. It is a warning at what the world can become if we continue to rely on technology and spend most of our time staring at a “viewing screen” (what a TV is referred to in The Pedestrian) rather than interacting with others. 

Despite social norms telling everyone to stay home and watch tv, Mr. Mead expresses himself and his freedom by doing what he wants to do rather than becoming like everyone else which shows how important it is to be yourself despite what others think and the possible consequences.

This story does a great job in showing what can happen to society if everyone becomes obsessed with technology and begins to basically live in isolation. The author uses vivid imagery with strong language to really get the point across. For example, when the author describes how the houses look on Mr. Mead's walk: “And on his way he would see the cottages and homes with their dark windows, and it was not unequal to walking through a graveyard where only the faintest glimmers of firefly light appeared in flickers behind the windows. Sudden gray phantoms seemed to manifest upon inner room walls where a curtain was still undrawn against the night, or there were whisperings and murmurs where a window in a tomb- like building was still open.” This strongly shows how lifeless the city has become and the people as well. That technology can take away all evidence of life. Instead of enjoying the beautiful nature and talking with people, the residents stay home and stare at a screen. Mr. Mead feels like he’s the only one in the city. Although there are people in their homes and out during the day, Mr. Mead never really sees them, and he may as well be the only one in the city and it would make no difference. This can be seen when the author states, “The street was silent and long and empty, with only his shadow moving like the shadow of a hawk in midcountry. If he closed his eyes and stood very still, frozen, he could imagine himself upon the center of a plain, a wintry, windless Arizona desert with no house in a thousand miles, and only dry riverbeds, the streets, for company.” 

This story also has a lot of symbolism such as the police car. The beginning of Mr. Mead's encounter with the police car is described where the author states, “the lone car turned a corner quite suddenly and flashed a fierce white cone of light upon him. He stood entranced, not unlike a night moth, stunned by the illumination, and then drawn toward it. A metallic voice called to him.” These 3 sentences tell us so much. For example, the “fierce” light and “metallic voice” show how harsh and unpleasant it was which could also be seen later when Mr. Mead is ordered to get into the car: “He put his hand to the door and peered into the back seat, which was a little cell, a little black jail with bars. It smelled of riveted steel. It smelled of harsh antiseptic; it smelled too clean and hard and metallic. There was nothing soft there.” The “there was nothing soft there” really emphasizes how all empathy and good human traits were taken away and replaced with technology that lacked this important characteristic. Also, the fact that there was no driver shows how the society valued technology over human interaction. It shows that ALL of the people in the city were watching TV, and the robot police car was making sure everyone was following this norm even though it wasn’t even a law.

When I read this short story, I was surprised at how in just a couple of pages, so many powerful and important ideas were included with lots of details. It was very eye opening and is very well explained with vivid imagery. 

Something I found interesting about the book was that in the city of 3 million, there was only ONE police car. I guess that makes sense though because if everyone is at home watching then there’s probably going to be no crime, but still 1:3 million is crazy. Although this is beside the point of the book, something I wondered about was how these people were watching TV of other people who were entertaining them. For example, the author mentioned that Mr. Mead saw News channels on the TV, comedians, etc. But I guess that could also be the people doing their jobs and then later coming home and watching TV as well. Also, the part where Mr. Mead said his profession is being a writer which the police car noted as "no profession" during the interrogation because nobody read things anymore and books and magazines were no longer sold was also pretty interesting and showed how the residents ONLY watched TV. It’s interesting how the people are watching things like “a dozen assorted murders? A quiz? A revue? A comedian falling off the stage?” (Mr. Mead guesses what someone is watching based on the usual topics.) But find it strange to walk outside.

I found this story very interesting and it is still relevant to today. In my own neighborhood, I see less and less people walking around without a specific purpose. I usually only see a couple people walking and a lot of the times it's with their dog. A lot of the times, it’s very empty and sometimes faint voices of some TV show or the colorful lights of the TV can be seen or heard. 

Overall, this story was very interesting and engaging and has a lot of important ideas to unpack despite only being a couple pages long.

-Jehan