Lori Cox
Brian Walker
English Composition II
December 5, 1999
Analysis of “The Veldt”
“The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury describes mainly a special room called the nursery where one could enter and their thoughts could be interpreted and the room would cater to those thoughts. The parents of the story spoiled their children with this room and with other things. This story shows the consequences of such actions.
“The Veldt” takes place sometime in the future, though the author is not clear on when, but the story describes some pretty outrageous technology. It is important that one realizes that this does not take place in the present. It is also important that the reader realize this story is just a fictional story, and the things described will most likely never come to be real.
The story spans three or perhaps four days; possibly not contiguous days. This takes place in America. It seems to be an especially advanced area as the parents of the story, George and Lydia, discuss taking a vacation from the house in another area where they would not have the technological advances that they have become accustomed to. It also takes place within the room, which seems to be stuck on a certain scene: an African veldt.
With all this technology, this family is constantly pampered. They have to do almost nothing. This seems to cause some uneasiness and apparently they had not noticed their own emotions. Lydia had to tell George of how she observed him before he realized he was becoming tense.
George and Lydia are parents of two children, Peter and Wendy. They live in a special house where they have to do nothing. The house seems to know what they need and provides it. In this house is a special nursery that would take the thoughts and holographically project it. The parents were becoming weary because they just begin to see that their children are spoiled and are relying more on the house than on them. Peter and Wendy do not seem to have the right attitude ten-year olds should have for their parents. When George threatens to shut down the house, they throw a fit. They act as if their very life is ending.
The story begins with Lydia having George look at the nursery, the holographic room. She senses something odd about it, something not right. Looking at it they see lions eating some creature. Later that day, as they eat dinner, George contemplates about things. He realizes that since the room takes his children’s thoughts and that since the room displays lions hunting down and killing, that something must be wrong, for ten is too young for such thoughts. He goes to the room and tries to change the room with his thoughts. It doesn’t respond. When Peter and Wendy come home George asks them about the room, so Peter has Wendy go “check.” When George goes back to the room he sees a forest, but also his wallet covered in teeth marks and blood. George locks the nursery door and tells the children they cannot return to it. Later that night, as George and Lydia are in bed they hear the children go to the nursery and they also hear familiar screams.
When George calls in David McClean, the psychiatrist, he is told that the room is being misused. David explained that the children were using the room to “channel” destructive thoughts. The room has become their family. George and Lydia, their flesh and blood parents, have become nothing to them. They need the room and could really not care less about their parents. David suggests—actually STRONGLY suggests—that they leave the house and the conveniences to learn how to really live. George goes about turning off everything in the house. When the children come home that day they begin to cry and throw fits. Lydia convinces George to turn it on for just a little bit, and he reluctantly does so.
When Lydia and George go to get the children, the lions come up and the children run out and lock the door. Lydia and George are attacked and eaten by the lions, so it is implied. When David comes to see them, the children are eating a picnic on the veldt and told him that their parents will come soon. This is where I get confused. Either the children are lying and the so-thought holographic lions ate their parents, or the parents just saw their telepathic selves being devoured by the beasts. If the parents had actually been devoured, the children were also planning on having David eaten.
This story is also a parable of some sort. When we do not parent our children and let them have whatever they want, they will begin to think of that object with more affection than of you. The children will turn against you. Also the convenience on technology spoils us. However, the parents were old enough to realize what was going on and wanted to fix it. The children didn’t care. All they knew is that they were comfortable in that house. That is all they knew and they thought another life would be horrible. They thought their parents were being cruel. They couldn’t understand why, when all the time before they received whatever their heart desired, that now their parents would be so mean as to take things away. The house would give them whatever they wanted and would never take it away. So when threatened by the parents to “kill” the house, the children felt moved to protect the house in any way possible.
