the veldt essay prompt

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Discussion Questions

What effect does Bradbury achieve by opening “The Veldt” with dialogue?

How does the forest setting with Rima compare or contrast with the veldt? Why, in your opinion, do the children choose the veldt in preference to the forest?

Who, in your view, is the true hero of the story? Who (or what) is the villain or antagonist?

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The Veldt Essay Topics & Writing Assignments

Essay Topic 1

The story begins with Lydia’s concern regarding the nursery due to the African veldt, the lions and the reoccurring screams. The nursery reflects the children’s psyche.

What seems to be the problem with the nursery? Why is it concerning to George and Lydia? What does it suggest that the children are thinking about?

Essay Topic 2

Bradbury’s work is commentary on his prediction of society projected forward from 1950.

Based on the central conflict of man versus machine and loss of human connection, describe the values of this society. Why must they live in a Happylife home? Why do George and Lydia believe that nothing is good enough for their children? What is suggested by the fact that they take sedatives to go to sleep at night?

Essay Topic 3

George reflects on the magnificence and cost of the nursery. What is the nursery’s purpose...

(read more Essay Topics)

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A Summary and Analysis of Ray Bradbury’s ‘The Veldt’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The Veldt’ is a short story by the American author Ray Bradbury (1920-2012), included in his 1952 collection of linked tales, The Illustrated Man . The story concerns a nursery in an automated home in which a simulation of the African veldt is conjured by some children, but the lions which appear in the nursery start to feel very real. ‘The Veldt’ can be analysed as a cautionary tale about the dangers of technology, especially when it threatens the relationship between parents and their children.

‘The Veldt’: plot summary

Married couple George and Lydia Hadley live in their Happylife Home which has all sorts of automated machinery to do everything for them around the house. The story begins with Lydia telling George to go and look at their nursery, as it is different from how it was. When they both step inside the nursery together, the simulated African veldt, complete with the smell, sight, and sound of lions and other animals, seems more real than it had before. George can feel the hot sun on his face as though he’s actually in Africa.

In light of their unsettlingly real experience in the nursery, Lydia insists that George lock the nursery for a few days so their children, Wendy and Peter, cannot play in there. Lydia even suggests shutting down the house for a few days so that she can do the housework, instead of letting the automated machinery do it for them.

That evening, during dinner, George feels the urge to go into the nursery and examine it. All you have to do to make animals appear is to imagine them and they are conjured before you as if they’re really there. George tries to summon Aladdin and his magic lamp, but instead the lions that he has imagined into being remain standing before him.

Lydia suggests that their children have filled the room with so many thoughts of Africa and death that the room’s ‘settings’ have got stuck on that mode.

When their children, Peter and Wendy, get home from their party, George demands to know what they have done to the nursery. But the children deny that the room is like Africa, and when George goes to investigate with them, sure enough the room is instead a beautiful forest, with no lions. However, George does locate an old wallet of his, which has apparently been chewed by a lion.

George tells his wife he regrets buying them the nursery, but his wife tells him it was designed to help them work through their neuroses. That night, they hear screams from downstairs and realise the children have broken into the nursery. When George suggests that they shut down the whole house for a month, Peter recoils at the idea.

George invites their friend David McClean, a psychologist, to come and inspect the nursery. David is so repulsed by the nursery that he advises George to tear the room down and send his children to him for daily treatment over the next year so they can recover.

He tells George that the nursery has gone from being a space where children’s thoughts would be captured on the walls so they could be analysed to a room which encourages destructive thoughts within the children.

George switches off the nursery, much to the anger of the children; even Lydia asks him to turn it back on for a short while. But instead he goes around the house and switches off all of the machinery.

In retaliation, the children lock their parents inside the nursery and switch it back on. As the lions advance on them, they realise the animals have become real. They scream, and recognise that the screaming they’d heard before were their own screams, which the children had longed to hear.

The story ends with David McClean arriving to speak to the children. Wendy and Peter, who are drinking tea while seated in the nursery, which is now displaying a serene scene, tell him their parents will be here soon. But the vultures flying overhead suggest that the parents have been devoured by the lions.

‘The Veldt’: analysis

A recurring theme in Ray Bradbury’s short stories is the danger of becoming overly reliant on technology so that we lose touch with what makes us human.

In ‘The Veldt’, handing over the job of parenting to the house has fatal consequences for George and Lydia, whose house provides all the ‘creature comforts’ they could desire, but at the cost of the natural, innate bond between parent and child. As the psychologist tells them, the house has replaced the parents in their children’s affections. When they surrendered that bond with their children and handed it over to the house, they created a monster.

In this respect, a comparative analysis of ‘The Veldt’ alongside another of Bradbury’s most celebrated stories, ‘ There Will Come Soft Rains ’, could yield some productive commentary on Bradbury’s attitude to technology and the ways in which it threatens our bonds with each other.

In that story, a fully automated house is left deserted, making breakfast for its human inhabitants who have perished in a nuclear war. In ‘The Veldt’, the human destruction is on a more local, domestic scale, but it is similarly a result of our reliance on technology.

In terms of raising children, this issue also carries other implications. Wendy and Peter are clearly named after the characters from J. M. Barrie’s celebrated story for children, Peter Pan , but the naming turns out to be ironic, since Peter Pan was a boy blessed with (condemned to?) perpetual childhood, ‘the boy who would never grow up’, whereas Bradbury’s Peter has already grown up too quickly.

As George comments to his wife, their children come and go as they please, head out to parties on their own and return when they wish: in many respects, the roles of parent and child have become reversed.

But they have also lost the boundless creativity which, Bradbury would doubtless agree, should be fostered in children from a young age. When they are creative and imaginative, their thoughts are destructive rather than creative, bringing to life their animosities towards their parents in a weird and unsettling twisting of the idea of ‘play’.

The nursery – which should, as the psychologist comments, be a space where they paint their thought-pictures upon its walls – has become a room of destruction and death. In a telling remark to his father, Peter objects to the shutting down of the house’s automated features because, rather than learning to paint for himself – a symbol of human creativity – he wants to do nothing except ‘look and listen and smell; what else is there to do?’

Bradbury clearly had a deep unease about such willing passivity: see his short story ‘ The Pedestrian ’, in which a whole city has happily surrendered its activity in favour of staying indoors every evening and passively consuming hours of television. And such anxieties obviously feed into Fahrenheit 451 , in which books are banned not because of what they say, but because of what they represent: free expression and critical thinking rather than passive consumerism.

‘The Veldt’ might be analysed in terms of the uncanny , Sigmund Freud’s theory of the strange feeling we experience when we find the familiar within the unfamiliar, or the unfamiliar lurking within the familiar. One of the classic examples which Freud cites is the idea of inanimate objects coming to life, such as dolls, or the carved crocodiles on a table which start to move.

The lions in the nursery are clearly uncanny in that they are meant to be simulations but suddenly, somehow, become flesh-and-blood creatures, with devastating consequences for the parents in the story. Bradbury’s skill is in tapping into our fears of uncanny phenomena in order to deliver a ghastly cautionary tale about our relationship with technology.

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Home › Literature › Analysis of Ray Bradbury’s The Veldt

Analysis of Ray Bradbury’s The Veldt

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on April 18, 2022

Originally published as the first narrative in a collection entitled The Illustrated Man , “The Veldt” was also one of three stories from the book adapted for a film version in 1969 and eventually published in play form, although neither of these is considered a critically important version of the original work. While usually thought of exclusively as a science fiction writer, Ray Bradbury is also a haunting essayist and an astonishingly lyrical poet. In his creative work as well as in his interviews, he makes no bones about the fact that, despite his fascination with other worlds and other times, he is at heart a technophobe, loving intensely this Earth in all its magnificence and worried— already in the early fifties—by the effects of increasing mechanization on the planet. One preeminent Bradbury scholar, George Edgar Slusser, has commented that “to Bradbury, science is the forbidden fruit, destroyer of Eden” (“Biography”). Thus, in “The Veldt” we see that Bradbury mixes elements of science fiction with a strong—nay, a terribly frightening— warning about humankind’s destruction of Earth’s creatures and resources.

Author Ray Bradbury attends Nineth Annual Hemingway Contest on March 10, 1986 at Harry’s Bar and Grill in Century City, California./GoodReads

Set in some unidentified future time, the story takes place over approximately 12 hours in a house apparently not unlike the one described so clearly in “ There Will Come Soft Rains ,” arguably Bradbury’s most famous story. “The Veldt” focuses on the home’s “nursery,” a space with thought-controlled holographic plasma walls, capable of creating visual illusions and their accompanying appropriate sounds and scents, which has been hijacked by the owners’ 10-year-old twins, named, interestingly enough, Peter and Wendy. Pervading the story is a growing sense of dread as we learn that now only the children are capable of controlling the walls of the nursery, which they have locked into the hot oppressiveness of the African veldt, complete with all its flora and fauna, including a pride of lions, which takes the story to its grisly but inevitable end.

There are those who interpret “The Veldt” as dealing with human beings who use technology to perpetrate evil or as indicating that our increasing dependence on machines instead of on each other creates barriers between family members, but underlying both the science fiction and the human relationship aspects of the story is Bradbury’s environmental message: Nature cannot—will not—be controlled. The twins have learned that lesson, but the parents, and most of the rest of the “civilized” world, apparently do not have a clue.

BIBLIOGRAPHY “Biography—Bradbury, Ray (Douglas) (1920– ).” In Contemporary Authors. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2004. Bradbury, Ray. “The Veldt.” In The Illustrated Man. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1987. “Introduction.” In Ray Bradbury, Modern Critical Views Series, edited by Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 2000. McNelly, Willis E. “Two Views: Ray Bradbury—Past, Present, and Future.” In Voices for the Future: Essays on Major Science Fiction Writers, edited by Thomas D. Clareson, 167–175. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Press, 1983.

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Essays on The Veldt

When it comes to writing an essay on Ray Bradbury's short story "The Veldt," choosing the right topic is crucial. The story is rich with themes, symbolism, and thought-provoking ideas, which can make the process of selecting a topic an overwhelming task. In this article, we'll discuss the importance of choosing the right topic, provide advice on how to do so, and offer a comprehensive list of recommended essay topics to help you get started.

The topic you choose for your essay on "The Veldt" will play a significant role in shaping the direction and quality of your work. A well-chosen topic will allow you to explore the story's themes, characters, and symbols in depth, enabling you to produce a compelling and insightful piece of writing. On the other hand, a poorly chosen topic can lead to a lackluster essay that fails to engage the reader or showcase your understanding of the material.

When selecting a topic for your essay, it's essential to consider your own interests and the aspects of the story that resonate with you. Additionally, you should aim to choose a topic that is both specific and focused, allowing you to delve deep into the subject matter without becoming overwhelmed. Finally, consider the availability of credible sources and research materials related to your chosen topic, as this will impact the depth and quality of your analysis.

Are you looking for thought-provoking essay topics on Ray Bradbury's "The Veldt"? Look no further! We have curated a comprehensive list of essay topics to help you delve deep into this classic science fiction story. Whether you are interested in exploring themes, characters, symbolism, or literary devices, we have got you covered. Take a look at the following essay topics categorized for your convenience:

• The Dangers of Technology in "The Veldt"
• The Loss of Parental Control in a Technological Age
• The Power of Imagination and Escapism
• The Effects of Consumerism on Family Dynamics
• The Theme of Isolation and Disconnection

Character Analysis

• George Hadley: A Tragic Figure or a Warning?
• Lydia Hadley: The Mother's Role in the Family's Downfall
• Peter and Wendy: The Psychological Impact of the Nursery

Symbols and Imagery

• The African Veldt: Symbolism of Nature vs. Technology
• The Nursery: A Reflection of the Children's Desires
• The Lions: Representations of Violence and Aggression

Psychological Analysis

• The Impact of Technology on Childhood Development
• The Allure of Virtual Reality and Its Consequences
• Freudian Interpretations of the Story's Themes

Comparative Essays

• "The Veldt" vs. Modern Technology: Parallels and Contrasts
• Bradbury's Vision of the Future vs. Contemporary Society
• Parental Control in "The Veldt" vs. Today's Parenting Challenges

Choosing the right essay topic is the first step towards crafting a compelling and insightful piece of writing. By considering your interests, the story's themes, and the availability of research materials, you can select a topic that will allow you to showcase your understanding of "The Veldt" and produce a high-quality essay.

Examples of Foreshadowing in The Veldt

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Symbolic Quotes in The Veldt

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A Ridiculous Relationship with Technology in The Veldt, a Short Story by Ray Bradbury

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Influence of Technology in The Veldt

The veldt short story.

September 23, 1950

Ray Bradbury

Science Fiction

George Hadley, Lydia Hadley, Wendy Hadley, Peter Hadley, David McClean

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Consumer Culture and Technology

“The Veldt” portrays a futuristic society in which things, especially consumer goods, have gained a life of their own. In the name of convenience and contentment, technology fulfills people’s every need, reducing humans to passive beings who only eat, breathe, and sleep. Bradbury, who wrote this story in 1950, was responding to the post-World War II consumer culture that was rapidly developing as the U.S. economy boomed. It’s remarkable how closely his extrapolation of American…

“Too Real” Reality

In Bradbury’s story, virtual reality has powerfully altered the Hadley family’s perception of reality. In the Happylife Home, this technology takes the form of a “ nursery ”, a room for the Hadleys’ children that immerses them in any scene the can imagine. For the children Wendy and Peter , the power of virtual reality reaches the point where they would much rather interact with the nursery than with the real world. As George points…

Human Nature

The Happylife Home is Bradbury’s futuristic vision of technology nearing its zenith. It may seem strange, then, that the predominant image in the story is that of an African veldt . The juxtaposition between advanced technology and this quintessential image of nature merits investigation. Technology and Nature are usually imagined as polar opposites. The development of technology, we might say, has allowed us to become masters of nature. In “The Veldt,” the nursery allows the…

Death of the Family

On the most basic level, “The Veldt” is about a family going through the typical problems that arise in family life. George and Lydia are parents who spoil their children, and then try to discipline them by taking away the toys they originally spoiled them with. In response, Wendy and Peter begin to hate their parents. The difference between the Hadleys and a real family is that the Hadley children’s toys are much more powerful…

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