The Pedestrian

Ray Bradbury was often accused of being a Luddite: that is to say, someone with a knee-jerk hostility towards new technology. But this was always an unfair criticism, as Bradbury was never...

The opening paragraphs of the story serve to establish the emotional atmosphere of the text as gloomy and foreboding. The word "silence" is used a couple of times, and the word "alone" is, as well....

In literature, tone is referred to as the writer's attitude towards a subject or audience, which is conveyed through word choice or the viewpoint of the author. The manner in which the writer...

One characteristic of a dystopian society is that citizens are thought to be under constant surveillance by a governing force. On the night when Leonard Mead is captured, his solitary walk is...

In the story, Leonard Mead is out walking. He encounters no one on his walk, but this is not unusual for his city. This is because all the inhabitants of his city appear to be glued to their...

There is a popular expression that "it takes a village" to raise a child. This seems to hearken back to the mid-twentieth century, when most women did not work outside the home and could help one...

In Bradbury's celebrated short story "The Pedestrian," he depicts a futuristic dystopian city where the vast majority of citizens remain inside their homes watching television all night. In 2053...

Of course, the central irony of the story is that a simple activiity—walking—is considered abnormal in the dystopian society of Bradbury’s story. This “normal” habit of walking the deserted streets...

Leonard Mead finds himself in conflict with a dystopian society where individuality is met with distrust and contempt. Written in the 1950s, "The Pedestrian" is a futuristic look at a society which...

The word "empty" appears five times in the story, always in conjunction with streets or public spaces. It occurs three times in the last sentence of the story. Bradbury is known for being a...

In this story, based on a real incident in which Bradbury was stopped by a policeman because his taking a walk seemed suspicious, Bradbury imagines a future world where nobody takes walks. This is...

Mr. Mead is arrested and will be taken to the Psychiatric Center for Research on Regressive Tendencies. In the year 2053, Mr. Mead is an odd man. He lives alone, and he likes to take walks at...

Leonard Mead thinks that most of the programming on television is mindless trash. There are two quotes that show his negative attitude to what people inside their homes are watching. "Hello, in...

Because Leonard Mead does not behave in a conventional manner by engaging in outmoded activities, he is taken to the Psychiatric Center for Research on Regressive Tendencies. When Leonard Mead...

In Ray Bradbury's "The Pedestrian," Mr. Mead's house differs from the other houses in the city because it is well illuminated, there is no television set in it, and it is unoccupied. Leaving the...

Ray Bradbury uses several types of figurative language, often to create strong visual images but also employing other senses. Metaphor is prominent among these, and he often uses extended...

Consider the world of Leonard Mead—people stay inside, they watch TV, they have very little social interaction, and everything is automated. But for Leonard, the world is different—he walks...

In this dystopian society, writers are considered useless, surplus to requirements. People don't read books anymore in this goggle-eyed, TV-obsessed culture, so writing is, at best, an irrelevance,...

Ray Bradbury's short story is set in A.D. 2053, where the vast majority of citizens remain inside their homes during the evenings and watch television. The atmosphere of the city in the evening is...

“The Pedestrian” is a science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury. It was first published in 1951, and it is set in an unnamed city in 2053. In order to describe life in this city, you might want...

One extended metaphor in "The Pedestrian" is the comparison of the city and its people to death. For example, while walking, Leonard Mead sees "gray phantoms" in rooms in houses where the curtains...

In a literary work, atmosphere is the feeling that a particular location inspires. In the short story "The Pedestrian," the atmosphere that is generated is one of estrangement and lifelessness. In...

This passage is significant because it points directly to what an anachronism the pedestrian has become in his society. Also, this final act adds an even more despairing tone to the narrative,...

In the opening of his 1951 short story, Bradbury makes the unusual choices of using several infinitive verb phrases ("to enter . . . to put . . . to step") and second person point-of-view ("you,...

In "The Pedestrian," Bradbury uses the phrase "tomb-like" to describe the houses that the pedestrian walks by. In terms of its literal meaning, Bradbury is suggesting that the houses look like...

Leonard Mead is a unique intellectual, who enjoys the fresh air as he walks the lonely city streets by himself every night. On this misty November evening, Leonard walks past dimly lit homes, where...

One important piece of the setting is the fact that the story takes place in the year 2053. That's still the future for current readers, but that date is fast approaching. Bradbury published the...

In the terrible dystopian world in which Leonard Mead lives, there is almost a universal curfew in operation. People are confined to their homes at night and are not permitted to venture out after...

Ray Bradbury must have felt personally threatened by the epidemic of television which was causing TV antennae to sprout like fungus on roofs all over America. Bradbury was a creative writer, and TV...

“The Pedestrian” is set in an unnamed city on one dark night. The reader becomes familiar with the setting by following the protagonist, Leonard Mead, as he walks alone. From the beginning, the...

Mr. Leonard Mead is a lone pedestrian, a man who walks the streets in the year 2053, a time when walking outside on the sidewalks is considered an unusual activity. As he walks along on a November...

Mr. Meade is a very lonely, isolated man. An intellectual and a writer in a society where just about everyone spends most of their leisure time glued to a TV set, it's fair to say that he probably...

From the first sentence, when the pedestrian Leonard Mead, enters out into "silence," he seems very much a lone figure. In the second sentence, we learn that "he was alone in this world of A.D....

The homes that Leonard Mead walks past on a nightly basis are described as having "dark windows" and being "tomb-like." Leonard's nightly walk through the deserted, cold streets of the city is...

"The Pedestrian," which was the inspiration for Fahrenheit 451, is a cautionary short story warning its readers not to allow technology to run out of control. In the dystopic world depicted in the...

Ray Bradbury's story "The Pedestrian," published in 1951 shortly after the invention of television, relates to science fiction because it is set in 2053 A.D.; there are more shows on TV than in...

Ray Bradbury published his story "The Pedestrian" in 1951. These were the early days of television, with little black-and-white screens and mostly poor-quality local programming. Some people feared...

What an interesting question! The answer is somewhat up to an individual reader's interpretation. Some readers might say that robots are in control because it is the robot police car that arrests...

The response of the "police car"--the one and only police car since the election of 2052--was a simple and rather disparaging one. In this futuristic Bradbury short story, Mead is out walking at...

Leonard Mead is a writer, and like many writers he loves to go for solitary walks. They are a way of unwinding after a day's intellectual work at a desk, and they are also a means of building up...

The late science-fiction writer Ray Bradbury had a decidedly negative perception of the evolution of humanity as he projected it into the not-so-distant future. This perception was caused in no...

"The Pedestrian" was set in 2051, about 100 years in the future when the story was published. The author was predicting a future in which the streets of the city were deserted at night because...

Within the narrative of "The Pedestrian," Ray Bradbury points to the progressive desensitization of people. For, they no longer interact with others in normal human relationships; instead, they sit...

When answering this question, it's useful to first define dystopia. What does dystopic literature tend to entail? (With that in mind, it also would be useful to consider the subject of utopia as...

All the sensory aspects of the story, in their cumulative detail, give a sense of isolation, since one only notices the external world in this sort of detail when one is alone with it. First there...

I suppose that to be entirely accurate, Leonard Mead is not being arrested and taken to jail. Mead is going to the "Psychiatric Center for Research on Regressive Tendencies." Mead is being taken...