The Pedestrian (critical)
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
In this guide entry I am going to discuss how the characterisation and setting in 'The Pedestrian' show how the freedom of an individual is compromised by the idea of the average normal person. Everyone in Bradbury's futuristic world must be part of the Norm.
This story is set in a cold, desolate city in the year 2052 and although in this futuristic city there is a population of three million people, there is not a soul to be seen in the streets, except for Leonard Mead. The shadow like figures, which he can see in the houses, are a complete contrast to Mead's personality. He enjoys the freedom of being an individual; they would rather be the same as everyone else. When the other inhabitants of the city are sitting in front of their flickering television screens, never leaving the comforts of their "tomb-like houses", Leonard Mead is walking alone in the streets, taking enjoyment from the simple pleasure of being outside.
Mead is a writer who no longer writes, as no-one reads or buys books in this society. He is an individual who doesn't want to conform to this brainwash Culture. He walks with sneakers on so that no one can hear him in the streets. The different shoes allow him to walk silently throughout the streets where the cement is "vanishing under flowers and grass" as no one uses the pavements. He needs the freedom to walk down "the long moonlit avenues" alone, hearing nothing. Descriptions and images give a clear indication of Mead's love of life, experiencing life first hand. Mead's love for nature and the outside world is shown in the way it makes him feel, such as the cold, which made his "lungs blaze like a Christmas tree inside", and how he examines with pleasure the beauty of a fallen leaf.
In complete contrast to Leonard Mead the city is portrayed as a very cold and bleak place where individuality has been destroyed. By day the streets are filled by a "thunderous surge of cars"; by night they are empty, left for a world where life consists of sitting addicted to the flickering light of the television. For Mead it was like "Walking through a graveyard". No one takes enjoyment from the world outside the television screen or beyond their front doors "In ten years of walking by night or day, for thousands of miles, he had never met another person walking, not one in all that time". These differences between Mead and his surroundings show the dehumanising effects of technology in this city, how through television, three million individuals have become detached from their way of life. They are just ghostlike figures living in their "The tombs ill-lit by television light, where the people sat like the dead, the grey or multi-coloured lights touching their faces, but never really touching them." no longer living but existing.
As Mead is walking through the city, which he describes as a "wintry, windless Arizona desert", when the police car confronts him. Mead is forced to face the reality that if he doesn't conform and meet the Norm of his society he will be locked away, treated as if he was insane for living his life in the way he wishes. The police car is much like the rest of the city, automated; it is cold and clinical, which creates an even more uninviting picture of the world in which Mead lives. From the police car "A metallic voice called to him", it wanted to know what Mead was doing and he explained he was "walking for air. Walking to see." The automated voice did not understand Mead said, "I explained; for air, and to see, and just to walk." This only confirmed the police car's decision that Mead was insane. Once Mead has been confronted by the police car he is told to get in "He put his hand to the door and peered into the back seat, which was a little cell, a little black jail with bars. It smelled of riveted steel. It smelled harsh antiseptic; it smelled too clean and hard and metallic. There was nothing soft there." Like the city's streets, the police car is empty and has no driver and no feeling. The police car symbolises the city; technology has taken over and all that is left is Leonard Mead, who we know is the normal person, whereas in this society he is considered to be an antiquity, a "Museum specimen" and as such is to be taken away and "reprogrammed".
This cold, desolate city and its one spokesperson, the automated police car, highlights the fact that Leonard Mead is the only person with individuality and humanity and the final confrontation, when his freedom is taken from him and he is taken away to the psychiatric hospital, is the victory of emptiness over individuality.
This story is set in a cold, desolate city in the year 2052 and although in this futuristic city there is a population of three million people, there is not a soul to be seen in the streets, except for Leonard Mead. The shadow like figures, which he can see in the houses, are a complete contrast to Mead's personality. He enjoys the freedom of being an individual; they would rather be the same as everyone else. When the other inhabitants of the city are sitting in front of their flickering television screens, never leaving the comforts of their "tomb-like houses", Leonard Mead is walking alone in the streets, taking enjoyment from the simple pleasure of being outside.
Mead is a writer who no longer writes, as no-one reads or buys books in this society. He is an individual who doesn't want to conform to this brainwash Culture. He walks with sneakers on so that no one can hear him in the streets. The different shoes allow him to walk silently throughout the streets where the cement is "vanishing under flowers and grass" as no one uses the pavements. He needs the freedom to walk down "the long moonlit avenues" alone, hearing nothing. Descriptions and images give a clear indication of Mead's love of life, experiencing life first hand. Mead's love for nature and the outside world is shown in the way it makes him feel, such as the cold, which made his "lungs blaze like a Christmas tree inside", and how he examines with pleasure the beauty of a fallen leaf.
In complete contrast to Leonard Mead the city is portrayed as a very cold and bleak place where individuality has been destroyed. By day the streets are filled by a "thunderous surge of cars"; by night they are empty, left for a world where life consists of sitting addicted to the flickering light of the television. For Mead it was like "Walking through a graveyard". No one takes enjoyment from the world outside the television screen or beyond their front doors "In ten years of walking by night or day, for thousands of miles, he had never met another person walking, not one in all that time". These differences between Mead and his surroundings show the dehumanising effects of technology in this city, how through television, three million individuals have become detached from their way of life. They are just ghostlike figures living in their "The tombs ill-lit by television light, where the people sat like the dead, the grey or multi-coloured lights touching their faces, but never really touching them." no longer living but existing.
As Mead is walking through the city, which he describes as a "wintry, windless Arizona desert", when the police car confronts him. Mead is forced to face the reality that if he doesn't conform and meet the Norm of his society he will be locked away, treated as if he was insane for living his life in the way he wishes. The police car is much like the rest of the city, automated; it is cold and clinical, which creates an even more uninviting picture of the world in which Mead lives. From the police car "A metallic voice called to him", it wanted to know what Mead was doing and he explained he was "walking for air. Walking to see." The automated voice did not understand Mead said, "I explained; for air, and to see, and just to walk." This only confirmed the police car's decision that Mead was insane. Once Mead has been confronted by the police car he is told to get in "He put his hand to the door and peered into the back seat, which was a little cell, a little black jail with bars. It smelled of riveted steel. It smelled harsh antiseptic; it smelled too clean and hard and metallic. There was nothing soft there." Like the city's streets, the police car is empty and has no driver and no feeling. The police car symbolises the city; technology has taken over and all that is left is Leonard Mead, who we know is the normal person, whereas in this society he is considered to be an antiquity, a "Museum specimen" and as such is to be taken away and "reprogrammed".
This cold, desolate city and its one spokesperson, the automated police car, highlights the fact that Leonard Mead is the only person with individuality and humanity and the final confrontation, when his freedom is taken from him and he is taken away to the psychiatric hospital, is the victory of emptiness over individuality.
