How is the atmosphere described in the opening paragraphs of "The Pedestrian"?

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. The air is "misty," and Leonard Mead is totally solitary. Actually, the reality is even bleaker than that: he is excluded from company of the people who live inside the homes that he passes. Walking by these homes is like "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." Buildings are "tomb-like" and filled with "whisperings and murmurs." In short, it seems almost apocalyptic, as though Leonard is the only survivor: people inside their homes are described as phantoms, or ghosts, though the people themselves are not even visible. Everything seems dead—silent, gray, like a tomb—and this establishes a somber and foreboding emotional atmosphere of the story.

As a literary device, atmosphere describes how the feel of a place is inspired by details in a story such as objects, setting, or background. Atmosphere is slightly different from mood, though. While mood describes the internal feelings of the reader upon reading a particular piece of writing, atmosphere incorporates the feeling a particular location inspires.

In the story, the atmosphere established in the first paragraphs is one of abject loneliness and alienation. The setting is a quiet city on a misty evening, and the streets appear empty. Mr. Leonard Mead is the only human presence on the streets.

The "buckling concrete walk," intersections, and moonlit avenues are empty of human presence; the words "silence," "graveyard," "gray phantoms," "tomb-like," and "alone" further reinforce the feeling of isolation we get when we visualize this city in our minds. A feeling of decay and extinction is in the air. The author also tells us his story is set in 2053 A.D., seemingly a futuristic vision of a world gone wrong. His skillful use of atmosphere in the first paragraphs prepares us to expect dysfunction and uncertainty as we anticipate the resolution to the story.

What mood or atmosphere does the setting suggest in "The Pedestrian"?

“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 third-person narrator mentions “silence” as a dominant characteristic of the city by night and emphasizes the act of walking. In introducing Mead, the narrator emphasizes his solitude:

[H]e was alone in this world of A.D. 2053, or as good as alone...

The darkness is emphasized by images such as smoke and colors such as gray, with light provided by the moon, faint glimmers behind windows in “ill-lit” rooms, and infrequent street lamps. The time period is given as early November, with the cold and frost being possible reasons the streets are otherwise deserted. Yet the reader wonders why Mead, who silences his steps by wearing soft-soled shoes, is a “lone figure”:

In ten years of walking by night or day, for thousands of miles, he had never met another person walking, not once in all that time.

The city is not lacking in people but in walkers, as the sidewalks are in disrepair. Sidewalks are described as “buckling” and “uneven,” with their “cement...vanishing under flowers and grass.”

The desolation of the night-time environment is emphasized both through the description of the streets through which Mead walks and through the contrast of the day-time ambiance he avoids. Rather than having a low population, the city seems distinctly divided between active days and nights that are so inactive that they associated with death. By day, highways are filled with masses of insect-like cars. In the night-time environment, a building may seem “tomblike” and the people inside may be “gray phantoms.”

These mentions of death increasingly connect with the idea of danger to Mead. His thoughts stray to television shows about murder, and he reflects that inside the “tomblike houses… people sat like the dead.” After Mead is picked up by the robot police car, the desolation and silence are complete. His absence leaves

the empty streets with the empty side-walks, and no sound and no motion all the rest of the chill November night.

The atmosphere of this short story is eerie, and the mood is menacing. The story takes place in the evening, and we learn that on Leonard Mead's nightly rambles Mead often does not return home until midnight. Images of "grey phantoms" and "tomb-like buildings" add to the unsettling aura. It is as if Mead is walking through a graveyard and not a city—which is the point Bradbury is trying to make.

Mead himself is an eery figure because he is the only one walking. Everyone else is inside watching television.

The eerie atmosphere heightens the menace when Mead hears a "metallic voice." It is the police, and when they find out that Mead walks every night, they take him to a psychiatric facility because the police consider that behavior so aberrant.

This story fits a subgroup of the Gothic genre in which the world is so eerily and uncannily altered that normal behavior is labelled insane, while abnormal behavior is considered healthy. This story became the starting point for Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451.

Describe the atmosphere and environment in "The Pedestrian."

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 the exposition of this story, Leonard Mead sets out on his nightly walk through uninhabited streets that are "silent," "long and empty," with only "his shadow to be seen."

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 river beds, the street for company.

As Leonard continues this walk, he never encounters a single person on the sidewalks that he traverses. When he peers inside the lightless houses, Leonard knows that the occupants are sitting before their television sets in the dark, mindlessly watching some program. Leonard talks to them, but they do not hear; he is isolated from these desensitized people whose thoughts are but mirrors for some inane personage on a television program.

Throughout the narrative, words such as gray, silent, tomb-like, ill-lit, iron, and empty serve to connote the isolation of Leonard Mead and create the mood and atmosphere of isolation and loneliness in the story.  

The setting of “The Pedestrian” by Ray Bradbury takes place in a large city of three million people in the year 2053.  Leonard Mead, the protagonist, is alone walking the streets of the deserted town to “get some air” and just to enjoy the exercise and sites.  There are no other pedestrians because, in this society, everyone spends their time watching TV in their homes.  Bradbury sets up an atmosphere of loneliness and isolation for Meade as he walks the streets.  It is nighttime, and all the houses and buildings are dark because people are like zombies watching TV.  When Mead is arrested for being a pedestrian and not having a job or wife (that would explain why he is walking), the only police car in the city drives by his house that is brightly illuminated, a symbol that he is different from other residents. 

Bradbury sets up the mood and environment with his use of descriptions and words like “dark”, “lonely”, and “silent” to convey the message of how this society has regressed into isolation and is controlled by its need for constant entertainment.  He describes the streets and homes as a “graveyard” with “phantoms” in their homes.  This theme of mindless existence by a society who has forgotten how to live life runs through many of Bradbury’s stories.