If you haven’t read Ray Bradbury’s “The Veldt” then be warned, as this review will be full of spoilers.
Ray Bradbury, known for “Fahrenheit 451”, crafts a tale centered around a husband, wife and their two kids.
Set in a futuristic home full of fantastical gadgets, one room stands out. The nursery, costing half of what the house is worth, is a high-tech wonderland that projects the inhabitant’s thoughts and feelings on the surrounding walls.
The reader soon learns that the parents are upset with the amount of time the kids — Wendy and Peter — are spending in the nursery.
When the Hadleys make their first trek into the nursey while the children are away, they find something unsettling.
The normally placid walls have transformed into dry yellow grasslands. The ceiling reflects a large yellow sun beating down on them from above.
Without warning, a pack of lions charges at them from the grasses and both mother and father leap back out through the nursery door.
When confronted, the children seem unware of any lions or grasslands. It soon becomes clear that not all is what it seems.
The story climaxes as the Hadleys shut off the house, including the nursey, under the direction of a psychologist.
The children break into hysterics, pleading with their father to let them have just one more minute in the nursery.
When the parents go in to shut off the nursery they are surprised to find it empty, save for hungry looking lions.
The door shuts and locks behind them, leaving all too real predators on both sides of the nursery door.
Right off the bat the reader is assaulted with detail. Bradbury is a master at crafting a scene with such intricate detail yet not overboard on adjectives.
All of this transforms the world around the reader much like the walls of the nursery transform in their world.
“The Veldt” is more than just a grisly story about sociopathic children. It is social commentary on the increasing dependency on technology.
Bradbury seemed to look into the not-so-distant future and see where technological dependency was headed.
Many times, the house and nursery are described as the new parents of the children. They provide their food, comfort and entertainment.
The parents are seen by the children as forces which prevent the fullest enjoyment of the house. They take away the toys, games and, above all else, the nursery.
Throughout the story it seems as if Bradbury writes the children as rather two-dimensional characters.
This, I believe, is intentional. It is incredibly hard to create realistic characters that engage in patricide, especially ones so young.
Instead, the children serve as embodiments of greed and gluttony.
In the end, the Hadleys live out their final confrontation between the lions and their own children.
It is never explained whether the children tinkered with the inner machinations of the room to create real lions, or if they simply poured enough unfettered hatred into the nursery that their emotions were personified as the African hunters.
What the reader must ultimately take from this story is that dependency without restraint can transform people, even innocent children, into the most debased versions of themselves.
Griffen Winget can be reached at [email protected]