Question

Early in the story "The Veldt," what evidence are we given that the Happylife Home system has not made either of the adults particularly happy? What message might Bradbury be trying to deliver here in "The Veldt"?

Accepted Answer

The evidence that the audience is given that the Happylife Home system in "The Veldt" has not made either of the adults particularly happy includes Lydia's concern regarding the nursery and feeling inadequate as a wife and mother. George also reveals that he is not content, acknowledging that their children are spoiled and deciding to lock the nursery. Bradbury's main messages concern the dangers of becoming over-reliant on technology and the consequences of spoiling children.

Answer

In Ray Bradbury's short story "The Veldt," George and Lydia Hadley purchase an expensive Happylife Home, which is a completely automated smart home that performs virtually every necessary function to maintain the household. The Happylife Home also comes equipped with a three-dimensional nursery that reproduces anything the Hadley children can imagine. Despite their technologically advanced Happylife Home, George and Lydia are not content and feel that their home is replacing them as parents. From the beginning of the story, it becomes clear that George and Lydia are not happy with their home when Lydia requests that George call a psychologist to look at the nursery. She is evidently concerned about the nursery, and the ominous African veldt frightens her. Shortly after entering the nursery, Lydia and George sprint out when several lions run towards them.
 
After running out of the nursery, Lydia asks George to lock it and begins to lament about their lifestyle. Lydia expresses her displeasure by telling George,

I don’t know—I don’t know...Maybe I don’t have enough to do. Maybe I have time to think too much. Why don’t we shut the whole house off for a few days and take a vacation? (4)

Lydia's request to lock the nursery, shut down the house, and take a vacation is evidence that she is not content. Lydia continues to elaborate on her negative feelings by saying,

I feel like I don’t belong here. The house is wife and mother now, and nursemaid. Can I compete with an African veldt? Can I give a bath and scrub the children as efficiently or quickly as the automatic scrub bath can? I cannot. And it isn’t just me. It’s you. You’ve been awfully nervous lately (4).

Lydia recognizes that technology is making her feel obsolete and George agrees that the home has replaced them as parents. He also realizes that Wendy and Peter have become unbearable and refuse to obey or respect them. George tells his wife,

They come and go when they like; they treat us as if we were offspring. They’re spoiled and we’re spoiled (8).

Eventually, George and Lydia decide to shut the house down, but their children manage to lock them inside the nursery, where the lions consume them in the African veldt. Bradbury's primary message concerns the dangers of becoming over-reliant on technology. Essentially, the short story is a warning that advanced technology has the potential to significantly upset family dynamics and negatively influence relationships between parents and children.

Answer

One indication that Lydia is not happy is her concern about her children's mental state. The scenes in the nursery are projections of the children's interests. When Lydia asks George to "look at" the nursery, he immediately understands that something has gone wrong with it. She next suggests that if he himself does not look at it, he should get a psychologist to do so. That is, rather than a technological issue in the projection system, she interprets the problem as something that is caused by what her children are requesting.
George soon shares in this concern, as the narrator presents his thoughts on the matter. George understands that the children, in conjuring up lions and vultures, are thinking about death. He thinks that they are too young for such thoughts, but his own morbid preoccupation leads him to conclude: "you were never too young, really. Long before you knew what death was you were wishing it on someone else." Lydia's unhappiness includes her alienation from her own home, in which she feels she no longer belongs.
Ray Bradbury seems to suggest that technology does not present a solution to human problems; rather, it reflects or even magnifies those problems.

Answer

Early in the story, Lydia tells George something is wrong with the nursery of their Happylife Home. The nursery is a huge, costly room with giant television screen, but when Lydia and George enter into the room, the hot African veldt, the vultures, and the charging lions they see inside leaves them frightened and uneasy.
We also learn that Lydia is unhappy because the home does everything for her. She states that the house is wife, mother, and nursemaid to her husband and children. She wants to go on vacation so that she can fry eggs and darn socks. "I feel like I don't belong here," Lydia says. She also notes that George has been nervous lately, drinking and smoking more than ever. She attributes this to him also feeling "unnecessary" in the Happylife Home.
Bradbury's point is that too much technology is not good for humans. We need to feel useful, productive, and empowered. We do best with a technology that serves us, but that is not so powerful it takes over our lives.

Answer

That the Happylife Home system has not made George and Lydia Hadley particularly happy is evinced in their anxieties about the nursery.
"It's just that the nursery is different now than it was," Mrs. Hadley tells her husband because she is anxious about this room in which the children play. When she and George enter the nursery, a virtual reality exists inside: The ceiling becomes "a deep sky with a hot yellow sun," and an African veldt appears, complete with odors and sounds. Over their heads a shadow is cast and George notices that it is caused by swooping vultures. Lydia points to lions going to a water hole to drink after they have apparently been eating something. She, then, asks her husband if he has heard a scream.

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 the yellow of them was in your eyes...the yellows of lions and summer grass, and the sound of the matted lion lungs exhaling on the silent noontide....

Lydia, then, screams, "Watch out!" as the lions charge them. They bolt for the door. Outside Lydia tells her husband, "They almost got us!" But, George patronizes her, saying that the walls are crystal and everything is "all odorophonics and sonics." Still, Lydia is frightened, and she urges George to tell the children not to read any more on Africa. And, she asks that George lock the nursery for a few days.

The Veldt Questions and Answers
by Ray Bradbury

Early in the story "The Veldt," what evidence are we given that the Happylife Home system has not made either of the adults particularly happy? What message might Bradbury be trying to deliver here in "The Veldt"?

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