who do little to parent them and only serve as obstacles.

In the African veldt, the children observe a world where animals feel no empathy but, instead, act to satisfy their wants and needs without concern for the feelings of others. It is brutal, certainly, but so are the children as a result of their parentage. Perhaps they feel a sort of kinship with this environment because they want to be rid of their parents, and they want to be free to act like the animals do.

The text of Ray Bradbury's 1950 short story entitled "The Veldt" provides many clues as to why Wendy and Peter focus their attention on the African veldt.

Bradbury's story is futuristic, imagining a time when houses do everything for the inhabitants. In this case, the HappyLife Home cooks, cleans, bathes, entertains, and takes care of every aspect of daily living. The children have a nursery that reads their thoughts and brings their imaginations to life, complete with three-dimensional visuals, smells, and sounds. Lydia and George Hadley have catered to their children's whims in every way. When they become concerned about the nursery, they divulge the children's obsession with it to the reader. Consider this exchange between George and Lydia, in which George is asking his wife to lock the nursery:

“And lock the nursery for a few days until I get my nerves settled.”

“You know how difficult Peter is about that. When I punished him a month ago by locking the nursery for even a few hours — the tantrum be threw! And Wendy too. They live for the nursery.”

“It’s got to be locked, that’s all there is to it.”

“All right.”

Later, George is reflecting on his decision to purchase the HappyLife Home system and thinking about how it works. He hints as to why Wendy and Peter would be conjuring an African veldt—they are thinking about revenge and death.

"Remarkable how the nursery caught the telepathic emanations of the children’s minds and created life to fill their every desire. The children thought lions, and there were lions. The children thought zebras, and there were zebras. Sun — sun. Giraffes — giraffes. Death and death. That last. He chewed tastelessly on the meat that the table had cut for him. Death thoughts. They were awfully young, Wendy and Peter, for death thoughts. Or, no, you were never too young, really. Long before you knew what death was you were wishing it on someone else. When you were two years old you were shooting people with cap pistols."

George and Lydia begin reflecting on the things that have gone wrong. George repeats a proverb that says children are like carpets—they must be stepped on occasionally. He reflects that he and his wife have never lifted a finger to correct their children. He admits to his wife that the children have become insufferable, and points to several examples in which they as parents had to say no for safety reasons. Their children's requests have become more and more outrageous. The parents call in a psychologist who explains that the purpose of the room is to analyze children's neuroses and then provide treatment. His recommendation is to immediately close the nursery and bring the children to him every day for treatment.

But Wendy and Peter have become addicted to the nursery, and virtually estranged from their parents. They know that their parents are the only thing that stands between them and the nursery. They have set a trap to dispose of their parents in the nursery, in an African veldt.

The classic science fiction short story "The Veldt" by Ray Bradbury tells of some parents who have invested in a technologically advanced home and have installed a virtual nursery for their children. The nursery can create imaginary landscapes for the users. When the story opens, the children have an African veldt in the nursery, complete with lions and vultures. Their parents wonder if it's good for the children, and they threaten to shut down the nursery. The children, in turn, lock their parents within the African landscape and let the lions devour them.

In answer to the question, it is important to understand the timeframe in which the story takes place. The children have already been playing with the nursery for some time. In the beginning, as their father recalls, they created Alice's wonderland, Aladdin's kingdom, Oz, and other worlds from fairy tales and legends. The African veldt is a recent occurrence. As the psychologist who visits explains, the room has "become a channel towards destructive thoughts, instead of a release away from them." The psychologist says that after the father, George, took away the room from the children for a few days as a punishment, he became a Scrooge instead of a Santa Claus. In other words, he has become to them someone who takes things away, instead of giving.

The children create the violent landscape of the African veldt not so much as a play area for themselves, but as a means to get back at their parents and win their independence from them, so they can live in their virtual worlds without opposition. In the end, they get what they want in the destruction of their parents.

As the Hadley parents comes to understand, the Happylife house they have purchased has taken over as the parent of the children. As Mrs. Hadley puts it,

The house is wife and mother now, and nursemaid. Can I compete with an African veldt?

The nursery with giant view screens that the parents built for the children at extra cost has especially become their surrogate parent. Wendy and Peter delight in focusing on the African veldt because it is an exciting place. Most importantly, it brings all their fantasies to life. Rather than putting boundaries around the children, as a normal parent would, the nursery lets them indulge their aggressions. It is only natural that the children gravitate to a place that allows their dreams to come true. The veldt says "yes" to them when their parents say "no" to them. The veldt is especially appealing to them because of its relentlessly, ruthlessly aggressive nature, which frees their ids to enact their repressed violent fantasies. This is far more satisfying to them than, say, a gentle bunny scene. It even allows them to enact their fantasy of killing their parents.