Mead is brought into a parallel with the most tender of human holiday observed in the western world when the rush of cold air makes his lungs “blaze like a Christmas tree”. Mead’s shadow is described as the “shadow of a hawk,” relating him to a wild and free-spirited bird.
The man is most human when he is surrounded by the elements of nature. Something as simple as taking a walk is “what Mr. Magazines and books didn’t sell any more”, it also evokes deep feeling among men by bringing this occupation(of a writer) close to the heart of humanity. Since literature is only records the history of mankind: “He hadn’t written in years. If, during his night walks, people are alerted to his presence, “lights … click on” in essence, the embodiment of humanity is about Mr. Mead is associated with warm, bright light, which is symbolic of the soul. We can say that the humanity of mankind is reflected in the character of Mr. Mead wasn’t married, and this fact one more time confirms his loneliness.
THE PEDESTRIAN THEME FULL
The narration is full of dialogues, from which we find out that Mr. To reach the effect of loneliness the author uses the repetition: “he was alone….or as good as alone”. Leonard Mead would pause, cock his head, listen, look ”(homogeneous parts of the sentence, enumeration). We learn about his attitude toward walking, as the author writes: “Sometimes he would walk for hours and miles”, “Mr. The houses on the streets are described as “gray and silent” and also the author compares them with tombs: “tomblike houses, like dead”(epithet, simile).īesides, the story-teller gives us the description of the main character itself. He describes streets as “moonlit avenues”, “filled with invisible snow”(epithets), “silent and long and empty”(polisyndeton). From the very beginning of the story, the author draws a gloomy picture of the mood of the text. The narration is done in the 3 rd person. Mead is walking alone, talking to himself, whispering to every house on every side as he is moving, his neighbors are carelessly spending their night time watching television. Communication has an important role in this story because while Mr. The author makes the lack of communication one of the most important issues. This shows that the television has become more important to society than the humans. In the story, technology is at a point where it controls people’s lives and their social habits, making humans slaves to technology. The author imagines people locked up in their “tomb-like” houses every night instead of socializing with others. Other citizens are sitting inside their homes watching television proving that Leonard is an outcast for not performing the normal nightly activity, watching television. This shows that Leonard is the outcast by walking instead of sitting home and using technology. In the beginning of the story Leonard Mead walks down the barren city sidewalks. The atmosphere is muffled and silent to show that no one dares to step foot outside at night. Likewise, in “The Pedestrian”, people are controlled by the overuse of television. There there is a strong over-reliance on technology.
Very similar messages about the rising use of technology are shared in the story “There will come soft rains”. The climax is Leonard Mead’s arrest by the police officer and when Leonard will be taken away to be studied to find out what is wrong with him and here appears the conflict “Man versus society” and “Man versus technology”.
The story consists of three parts: introduction, climax and denouement.
THE PEDESTRIAN THEME DRIVER
It depicts the downfall of mankind by technology’s takeover of society (ex: police car with no driver or man in it) and at the same time it suggests that if the world continues the progress that it is now then we will become no more than humans who are doing nothing with our lives. Mead to a psychiatric hospital.Īs the story is set in the near future, in the year 2053, I would say the theme explored in the text is the possible consequences of a society dependant on technology and what technology will inevitably become. He was asked to get in the police car, where there were no people at all. One evening he was stopped by a police car, and was asked about the reason for such walk. He enjoyed his loneliness during his so called journeys. The science fiction story “The Pedestrian”, written by Ray Bradbury, follows the story of a writer named Leonard Mead who walks alone every night on the sidewalk, simply for the pure pleasure of it.
0 kommentar(er)
