conflict is evident in theclimax: The room is a mechanical device. George Hadley tries to control it, but he fails. In the end, it kills him and Lydia.

But you can find support for this conflict throughout the story. For instance, in the first scene, Lydia voices her fears and concern to George. She feels threatened by the room, and indeed the whole house. George wonders why she doesn't want to enjoy the convenience of having machines take over her chores, and she replies that she feels she's being usurped:

"I feel like I don't belong here. The house is wife and now mother and nursemaid."

The house is more efficient; she can't compete with it.

Later, George becomes convinced. They fantasy was becoming "too real." The room allows his kids to dwell too much "on one pattern." Ominous signs emerge, indicating the threat that the room poses: The fact that George can't turn off the lions; the bloody wallet; the bloody scarf; the screams.

2. Parents versus children

Once again, there is abundant support for this conflict, especially in scenes directly involving the room. The room is a threat, and the children are responsible for the behavior of the room. Throughout the story, the author drops hints that the children's Africa simulation includes attacks on their parents. The parents' possessions (the wallet and scarf) are found in the room with blood on them.

But the conflict is also evident in other parts of the story. For instance, the first time we encounter the children, the boy lies to his parents. "There is no Africa in the nursery." When the parents attempt to prove the opposite, they discover the scene has changed. The children are trying to trick their parents, and George wonders:

"We've given the children everything they wanted. Is this our reward -- secrecy, disobedience?"

Later, when George indicates that he is considering "[shutting] down the house," we see this interchange:

"I don't think you'd better consider it anymore, Father."

"I won't have any threats from my son!"

And when George finally makes his decision, we see Peter wish his father dead:

"Don't let them do it!" wailed Peter at the ceiling, as if he was talking to the house, the nursery.  "Don't let Father kill everything."  He turned to his father, "Oh, I hate you!....I wish you were dead!"

3. George Hadley's internal conflict: complacency versus recognition of danger

In the first scene, we see how George is intellectually and emotionally invested in his technology. If he feels the occasional qualm, he can rationalize it away:

"And again George Hadley filled with admiration for the mechanical genius who had conceived this room. A miracle of efficiency selling for an absurdly low price. Every home should have one. Oh, occasionally they frightened you with their clinical accuracy, they startled you, gave you a twinge, but most of the time what fun for everyone…"

But when he tries to reassure his wife, it is not without misgivings or doubt. He sees the bolted door "tremble as if something had jumped against it from the other side."

Subsequently, he is bothered by intrusive, disturbed thoughts about threatening imagery in the room, and he is confronted with direct evidence that something is working against him.

• He commands the lions to "go away," but they don't.
• He finds his wallet in the room -- damaged by lion tooth marks, and smeared with blood. Later, he finds a scarf of Lydia's -- also covered in blood.

Such experiences make George doubt the psychological safety of the technology. Maybe the fantasy is becoming "too real." Maybe the room allows his kids to dwell too much "on one pattern." He asks McClean if the lions could "become real." Could there be "a flaw in the machinery, a tampering or something?"

After his conversation with McClean, George finally seems to resolve his inner conflict. He announces that the "whole damn house dies as of here and now."

In Ray Bradbury's short story "The Veldt," the conflict that comes immediately to mind is that between the husband and wife, George and Lydia. George is thrilled by the programmed landscape (and all that comes with it) that is recreated in the children's nursery.

The lions were coming. And again George Hadley was filled with respect for the brilliant mind that had come up with the idea for this room...Every home should have one. Oh, occasionally they frightened you with their realism, they made you jump, gave you a scare. But most of the time they were fun for everyone. 

While George is delighted with the scariness of the room's theme, Lydia is not at all enthusiastic. She asks George to visit the room for she feels something about it has changed and she is fearful.

“They’ve just been eating,” said Lydia. “I don’t know what.”

“Some animal.” George Hadley put his hand above his eyes to block off the burning light and looked carefully. “A zebra or a baby giraffe, maybe.”

“Are you sure?” His wife sounded strangely nervous.

“No, it’s a little late to be sure,” he said, with a laugh. “Nothing over there I can see but cleaned bone, and the vultures dropping for what’s left.”

“Did you hear that scream?” she asked.

“No.”

Several things are evident not only in Lydia's instinctive fear, but also in George's casual response to the scene before them. Lydia is not certain that the lions have killed an animal. Nervously, she asks George to confirm that there is nothing to worry about.

The innate conflict is obvious when comparing Lydia's concerns to George's response. Judging what is left of the lions' prey, he laughs when he notes that the corpse is too far gone to determine what it was in life.

Ironically, while George admires the realism of the program that has created the veldt for his children, he seems unconcerned that that very realism might create a danger for his family or himself.

The close call George and Lydia experience with the lions provides Lydia's character the opportunity to express the author's concerns in this cautionary tale:

“I’m afraid.” She came to [George] and put her body against him and cried as he held her. “Did you see? Did you feel? It’s too real.”

It appears that Lydia feels that what should simply be a form of entertainment for their children has become an unnatural (and threatening) generator of their daily experiences. Overall, the computerized house has robbed them all of the need to face the challenges of daily living. Bradbury may well be using Lydia's response to point out that failure to interact with the world at large is not only dangerous, but also socially disruptive.

From a sociological standpoint, another conflict is that which exists between man and machine. The house does everything for them so that they no longer have to do anything for themselves. This has created social dysfunction in that the parents have lost the satisfication of daily accomplishment; they have also become distanced from their children. This especially troubles Lydia.

George notes:

“But I thought that’s why we bought this house, so we wouldn’t have to do anything?”

Lydia responds:

“That’s just it. I feel like I don’t belong here. The house is wife and mother now, and nurse for the children. Can I compete with an African veldt? Can I give a bath and clean the children as efficiently or quickly as the automatic body wash can? I cannot. And it isn’t just me. It’s you. You’ve been awfully nervous lately.”

Lydia's sentiments echo her worry about losing touch with the very things that have given her life direction and purpose.

Other conflicts exist in that the children prefer the world generated by the veldt program. They have disassociated themselves from a normal home environment, from their parents and from the real world. Their lack of coping skills is evident in the tantrum Peter had once before when separated from the veldt. It would also appear that very little is expected of them.

Bradbury's futuristic story provides a warning that is especially relevant today. Failing to note conflicts technology creates in our families and our world could be disastrous.

Do we stand to lose our direction and purpose if we depend too much on machines to define our reality? If we do so, how much do we lose of our relationships with others—and the essence of who we are—in the process?

The exposition of "The Veldt" by Ray Bradbury begins with Lydia Hadley's complaints to her husband, George, that something is wrong with their children's nursery. In a house that seemingly automates every human need, from cooking to tying shoes to bathing, the nursery is a fantastical, three-dimensional projection of the human mind. Instead of projecting scenes from the stories of Aladdin or Wonderland as the children have previously enjoyed, the nursery now projects a scene from Africa, and Lydia is concerned that this indicates that something is "wrong" with their children. She asks George to invite a psychologist to visit and take a look at the scene.

George begins to investigate the room more closely, which is the beginning of the rising action. Indeed, he does find cause for some concern; as odorophonics blow the realistic scents of an African veldt across the nursery, a hot sun beats down on George and Lydia. Across the veldt, they watch lions eating an unrecognizable animal. George once again admires the "mechanical genius" who was able to orchestrate the technology of this room. When the lions come running toward them, George and Lydia flee.

Shaken, Lydia asks George to lock up the room for a while. She insists that she would like to take a few days of "vacation" from their automated house so that she can feel a sense of purpose again. Glancing back, she asks George to reassure her that the lions cannot get out of the nursery.

Later, George returns to the nursery to take another look around. He hears a scream and the roar of lions; as the lions look up from their meal, George commands them to go away. To his surprise, the lions remain. George demands that Aladdin appear in the room, but nothing happens. When the children return home, George questions his children about the African veldt in the nursery. The children deny knowing anything about Africa, and Wendy runs to the nursery to change the scene before their parents can get there. When George returns to the room, the scene has changed, but he finds one of his old wallets near where the lions had been; it is chewed up and bloody. He locks the door to prevent the children from entering again.

Later that night, George tells his wife that their children are "insufferable" and "spoiled." He believes that they have become increasingly angry since George forbade them from traveling to New York on the rocket. A moment later, he and Wendy hear familiar screams coming from the nursery and realize that the children have broken into the nursery again.

The next morning, George's son Peter questions whether his father really plans to lock up the nursery. George replies that he is considering turning off the entire house for a month to return to a "one-for-all existence." Peter believes this sounds "dreadful" and warns his father not to consider this plan anymore. When George demands that Peter avoid threatening him, Peter coolly responds, "Very well."

David McClean, a psychologist, drops by to examine the nursery. He is deeply concerned about the projections of the children's thoughts, as evidenced in the threatening nursery scene. He explains that by trying to exert control over his children, George has transformed from a "Santa" to a "Scrooge" in their eyes. He doesn't want the children to go any "deeper" down the dark path they have evidently become so focused on. The men find the fuse box and "kill" the nursery as the children dissolve into "hysterics." Peter screams that he hates his father and wishes him dead. Wendy begs for just one more moment with the nursery, and Lydia insists that "it can't hurt." The parents leave the nursery to get dressed for a vacation.

The climax begins when George and Lydia hear Peter and Wendy calling to them from the nursery. They run into the African veldt and see nothing except lions. The door slams behind them, and they realize that the children have locked them in the room. The lions approach from three sides. The parents scream and then realize why those screams in the veldt always sounded so familiar.

The falling action occurs when David McClean reappears and asks where the children's parents are. The children reply that they will "be there directly." Mr. McClean watches the lions clawing at something as they prepare to feed. When they finish, he watches as they move toward the watering hole.

Wendy calmly asks the psychologist if he would like a "cup of tea" as vultures drop down out of the sky, which is the story's resolution.

"The Veldt" is a parental horror story that ends, ironically, in horror dealt to the parents (ironically, because they are horrified by what they witness in the nursery not knowing that the nursery will give them their own horrifying end). The climax of this horror story wrapped in convenience and luxury is when the fates of the family members are irreversibly sealed behind the slammed door of the nursery: the children go their way to tea parties among lions and the parents go their way to the feast of lions.

As the emotional impact of the story mounts with every warning word George utters, the children become more and more assertive and more and more quietly aggressive. Their aggression builds as a quiet thunder because they know they have the ingenuity and power on their side: ingenuity, because they can manipulate the parents to their own will through wiles based on their parents' love and protectiveness; power, because they possess the mental keys to access the nursery's demonstrated ability to change reality; the nursery's power has been demonstrated in George's blood stained wallet and in Lydia's "bloody scarf":

"Hello." [McClean] bent and picked up a bloody scarf. "This yours?"
   "No." George Hadley's face was rigid. "It belongs to Lydia."

The climax to this mounting emotional tension and conflict comes when the door slams behind George and Lydia who are then trapped in the nursery behind a locked door and surrounded by lions: "The lions on three sides of them, in the yellow veldt grass, ... roaring in their throats." Leading up to this moment, Wendy and Peter have devised a plan. They call out to their mother and father as though in danger, "'Daddy,  Mommy, come quick - quick!'" With the children "nowhere in sight," George and Lydia naturally rush to the nursery, throwing open the door and dashing inside. Africa is in place. The lions are there, "waiting." The door slams behind them. The climax is ushered in to the screams of both as George yells "Open the door!" Peter tries one cold, chilling time to negotiate a victory for themselves and the nursery: "Don't let them switch off the nursery ...." George replies, "Now, don't be ridiculous...." And then, as the climax, the parents heard the waiting lions:

   And then they heard the sounds.
   The lions on three sides of them, in  the yellow veldt grass, ...rumbling and roaring....

The climactic fates of George and Lydia are sealed. The story resolves despite them. They have no more decisions to make. After this climax comes the falling action and the resolution wherein Wendy offers tea to McClean in the silence replacing her parents screams, and the lions feed quietly under "shady trees" in the background.

At a distance Mr. McClean saw the lions ... quieting down to feed in silence under the shady trees.
     [McClean] squinted at the lions with his hand tip to his eyes.
     Now the lions were done feeding. They moved to the water hole to drink.
     A shadow flickered over Mr. McClean's hot face. Many shadows flickered. The vultures were dropping down the blazing sky.
     "A cup of tea?" asked Wendy in the silence.

Clearly, the major instigating incident that leads the children to take such terrible revenge on their parents comes when George and Lydia feel that their children have been spending too much time in the nursery and have become fixated on the African veldt and the dangers of hungry lions. Yet, if you read the text carefully, the parents note that their children have been behaving "strangely" ever since they had been forbidden to take a rocket with them to New York. As Lydia comments, "They've been decidedly cool toward us since."

Bradbury paints a picture of a world that is terrifyingly real and where the children are given everything. As the parents comment when they think about what they did wrong:

"We've given the children everything they ever wanted. Is this our reward--secrecy, disobedience?"

"Who was it said, 'Children are carpets, they should be stepped on occasionally'? We've never lifted a hand. They're insufferable--let's admit it. They come and go when they like; they treat us as if we were offspring. They're spoiled and we're spoiled."

So, whilst we can see that the inciting incident involves the parents trying to assert their authority on the children and preventing them from engaging in harmful activities, we can see that the real damage was done much earlier, when the children and the adults were born up in a society where they never had to do anything, and were "spoiled" as a result.

The tricky thing about questions such as this one is that, in the vast majority of cases, writers will not begin their stories at the very beginning. Rather, in the act of reading, what you will usually observe is a far larger web of influences and cause-and-effect referring backwards into an earlier and unseen history. Such is the case in "The Veldt."

If you're looking for the story's inciting incident, it would be found in the beginning of the story, when Lydia and George go into the nursery and find this depiction of Africa and the lions. This experience shakes Lydia especially, who has become disillusioned to the modern technology represented by the house. This discovery will shape the later events in the story and the conflict between parents and children.

However, as is almost always the case in fictional writing, these events are themselves building off of earlier events and interactions that have preceded the events of the narrative entirely (events we have not seen but whose effect looms over the action of the story regardless). In this case, the truly foundational events would lie in the Hadleys' decision to purchase this Happy-life Home and (moreover) to surrender so much of their parental responsibilities to the nursery. In the process, children and parents gradually become estranged from one another, with the children seeing the nursery as their primary caretaker. This dysfunction will prove fatal at the story's end.

“The Veldt” begins when a wife tells her husband there is something wrong with the nursery in their automated house.

The initial incident is the event that first gets a story running. The couple lives in a “Happy-Life Home” that takes care of their every need.  They added a nursery, which was automated to look like an African Veldt.

The lions were coming. And again George Hadley was filled with admiration for the mechanical genius who had conceived this room. A miracle of efficiency selling for an  absurdly low price. Every home should have one. (p. 2)

The wife saying something is wrong, and the coming of the lions in the nursery, are both the inciting incident.  Although they close the door and leave the nursery, the wife, Lydia, still thinks the nursery is too real, even though George, the husband, does not think so.  He says the nursery is just a technological marvel and designed to look real, but there is nothing to worry about.

Ray Bradbury's "The Veldt" follows the story of George and Lydia Hadley and their ultra-modern house, a "Happylife Home" which contains a nursery for their children, Wendy and Peter, that seems to provide a virtual reality experience based upon the occupants' thoughts. The first "incident" of the story involves Lydia fretting over the contents of the nursery and how much time the children have spent in it recently.

Lydia and George venture into the nursery, only to discover that it has been transformed into a life-like African veldt, complete with lions who have just killed and devoured a baby animal. The lions charge at Lydia and George, and the couple rush out of the room; Lydia is terrified, but George finds it comical. At Lydia's request, George agrees to lock the nursery for a few days while her nerves are "settled." 

This incident foreshadows the climax of the book, in which George and Lydia are locked in the nursery by their children and devoured by lions as punishment for their "restrictive" parenting. 

The initial incident occurs when Lydia (the mother in the story) first voices her concerns to her husband George about their children's spending so much time in the interactive nursery. The conversation not only foreshadows that something significant might happen in the nursery; it also sheds light on the reversal of roles between parent and child that is beginning the family and on George's tendency to disregard his wife's opinion.

In "The Veldt," Bradbury uses different elements of setting. First of all, he uses time to situate his story in the future. Although Bradbury does not reveal a specific year, we know that the story is set in the future because of the existence of the HappyLife Home. The technical sophistication of this house shows that it does not belong to the current year, or the year that Bradbury published this story. This house, for instance, is capable of taking complete care of the family:

This house which clothed and fed and rocked them to sleep and played and sang and was good to them.

In addition, the house is so technologically advanced that it can react to the physical movements of the family:

Their approach was sensed by a hidden switch and the nursery light turned on when they came within ten feet of it. Similarly, behind them, in the halls, lights went on and off automatically as they left them behind.

In the story, Bradbury also uses a number of different geographical settings. The story not only takes place in the Hadley's home, it also takes place in the African Veldt. Bradbury uses a combination of images to convey this setting. There are olfactory images, for example, which relate to smell:

The hot straw smell of lion grass, the cool green smell of the hidden water hole, the strong dried blood smell of the animals.

Bradbury also uses auditory images to convey the sound of the African Veldt setting:

The thump of distant antelope feet on soft grassy ground, the papery rustle of vultures.

Bradbury, therefore, uses two different elements of setting-- time and location--in the story. By doing this, he explores the danger of society's over-reliance on technology.