The Veldt

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"The Veldt" is a short story written by Ray Bradbury that was published originally as "The World the Children Made" in the September 23, 1950 issue of the The Saturday Evening Post, later republished in the anthology The Illustrated Man in 1951. The anthology is a collection of short stories that were mostly published individually in magazines beforehand.

Background

The rise in the popularity of televisions had a direct influence on "The Veldt" and Bradbury. He does not look at the machinery as a good thing. He doesn't see it as something that can save us time from chores and give us extra time to spend on other things. At the time this short story was written many families were buying television sets and no one was certain how this would impact the family and the relationships they had. There was the fear that watching too much television would bring about a breakdown of the family unit. Bradbury believes machinery is something that will turn the world upside down, ruin relationships, and destroy the minds of children. This free time will leave people bored with thoughts consumed with fear, anger, and vengeance. This is all conveyed throughout "The Veldt."

Plot summary

A family of four installs the latest technology in their house. The house does everything for the family from clothing them to feeding them to rocking them to sleep at night. They called the new technology the “Happylife Home” and it cost the family $30,000 (equivalent to roughly $250,000 today) to install. They want nothing more than to make their children happy, no matter what the cost is. The most advanced technology was the nursery and was designed to show the children whatever they wanted to see. It is a personal virtual reality room. This three-dimensional picture that can reproduce any spot on the earth with perfect realism. The children love the nursery and spend a great deal of time in there.

George and Lydia soon realize that there is something wrong with the nursery and even their way of living. Lydia becomes afraid of the nursery and wants to run away. She feels this great home has given her no real reason to exist. It has robbed both her and George of their roles within a family unit. Lydia longs for a vacation, while George begins smoking and drinking more than usual. Soon the children take over the parental role. The parents have very little control over their children and the children call the shots. It is made clear that the children identify too much with their nursery and they become less than human. They show no guilt, remorse or regret when the technology destroys their family. The children have become cold and emotionless just like the machines that control their house. The children are not grateful to their parents for giving them this house or the nursery. Instead they become vile and spoiled.

They discover a problem with the nursery when it appears to be stuck in an African setting. This includes the hot sun and even lions feeding in the distance. George and Lydia do not understand why their children would be concerned with Africa or with death. They decide they must call a psychologist, David McClean, and he suggests they turn off the room and the house, and leave. When they inform the children of this, they throw a fit. George eventually gives in and lets them in their nursery one last time. What he does not realize is that this will be his last time in the nursery. The children lure their parents into the room and lock them in. Throughout the story, the parents have heard screams, and found George's wallet and Lydia's scarf, bloodied, inside the room for no apparent reason. The parents soon realize, with horror what the lions were feeding on for the past months was actually them. Their children were practicing the murder of their parents.

Somehow the children order the house to defend itself, as if it were living. At this point lions from the veldt come into reality and kill George and Lydia. Then David McClean comes to the house, and the children, who had watched the lions devour their parents, offer him tea. They go on living as though nothing had happened. The sun, which represents their anger, is still blazing hot.

Major themes

Domestic Gothic fiction is bound up with the ideas of the house, gender and the family. Some famous authors such as Edgar Allan Poe focus on tales of domestic nightmares. Bradbury also focuses on the domestic nightmare in the short story "The Veldt" in order to bring about a warning to those who are focusing too much on technology.

A gothic element in this story is pushing extremes. The house is raising the children. The room of imagination is doing it. The automated lifestyle does everything for you.

Bradbury takes a specific object and shows it in a new perspective. A nursery is normally a safe, happy place where children play and interact with their caregivers. In the story he keeps the idea of what the nursery does the same but changes the caregivers into inanimate unfeeling machinery. This is a catalyst for every bad event that takes place. The nursery becomes both a caregiver and an instrument of destruction. It is safe for the children but not for their parents. Bradbury has taken something familiar and altered it slightly.

The house in this short story can be classified as a gothic haunted house. Instead of having the poltergeists or other ghosts this house is haunted with the technology that lives in it. “The house was full of dead bodies, it seemed. It felt like a mechanical cemetery. So silent. None of the humming hidden energy of machines waiting to function at the tap of a button” (275 Oates). This quote shows that the house has an eerie almost haunted feel about it as soon as the father turns the house off.

Gender is another aspect that is focused on in the novel. The father is the head of the house and makes the decisions while the mother minds the house and the children. However, when these roles are relaxed the family unit collapses and roles are mixed up. The character David McClean tells the father that he, "let this room and this house replace you and your wife in your children's affections. This room is their mother and father, far more important in their lives than their real parents." This failure of parental responsibility sets the children up to become psychologically attached to the nursery. The children step into their own roles and instead of the father being in charge the son puts himself in charge.

Family is another aspect that gothic fiction and this short story focus on. The family unit in this case is very messed up. The parents have no control, but the children do. This helps lead to a gothic nightmare in which the parents are destroyed by the technology. The disaster gives the message of the need for parents to never give up control and to keep technology from taking away normalcy in the household.

Abandonment is another aspect in this story. First the children are abandoned by their by parents and left to be taken care of by machines and technology. Second, when George tells them he is turning off the nursery, they are abandoned by their surrogate parent.

Alienation is another aspect. This occurs when one feels cut off or estranged from what used to be comfortable and familiar. A sense of isolation and uneasiness takes over. In "The Veldt," this theme is captured in Lydia. She is the first to recognize that there is something unfamiliar happening in the house and urges George to take a look at the nursery because, it "is different now than it was." Lydia clearly recognizes her own feelings of alienation when she admits very early in the story, "I feel like I don't belong here. "

Dystopia is another theme. This house is supposed to be a place of utopia. It is supposed to be a place where they have time to do the things they enjoy rather than spend it doing house work or the everyday stresses that occur within a normal life. Instead, the house has the opposite affect. Their dream home becomes a nightmare.

Consumerism is another theme. This is shown through George's character. He purchases the best house money can buy. He is trying to buy his family's love. He does this instead showing love in a conventional way. This is the beginning of the end for his family.

Another theme is illusion versus reality. George agrees to turn on the nursery one last time because he does not believe that he is in any real danger. "Walls, Lydia, remember; crystal walls, that's all they are. Oh, they look real, I must admit — Africa in your parlor — but it's all dimensional superactionary, supersensitive color film and mental tape film behind glass screens." Illusion and reality have changed places with one another. One has instantly become the other.

Man versus machine is another theme. There is a power struggle going on between the nursery and the parents. The machine eventually kills them and in doing so has the ultimate power. The children look at the nursery as a parental figure. They have been crippled by it. They are cold and emotionless just like their machine. Man is ultimately defeated by machinery.

Adaptations

The story was adapted into an episode of the radio program X Minus One in 1955.

"The Veldt" was adapted into a stage production by Bradbury and can be found in a volume titled The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit & Other Plays in 1972.

The Ray Bradbury Theater adaptation was directed by Chris Bailey and Allan Kroeker in 1985. It was a Canadian-produced anthology television series scripted by Bradbury. Episode #29 (Season 3, Episode 11) was "The Veldt". It was first broadcast 10 November 1989, and starred Malcolm Stewart, Shana Alexander, and Thomas Peacocke.^[1]

See also

• Simulated reality
• Smart House is another example of technology, initially intended to assist families, resulting in havoc.

References

1. ^ "The Veldt" (1989) at the Internet Movie Database

• Oates, Joyce Carol, ed. American Gothic Tales. New York: Tarcher, 1996.
• Kattelman, Beth. Critical Essay on "The Velt," in Short Stories for Students, Vol. 20, Thomas Gale, 2005.
• Hart, Joyce. Critical Essay on "The Velt," in Short Stories for Students, Vol. 20, Thomas Gale, 2005.
• McLaughlin, John J. "Science Fiction Theatre," in Nation, Vol. 200, No. 4, January 25, 1965, pp. 92-94. Reprinted in Short Stories for Students, Vol. 20.

External links

• An overview of "The Veldt"
• Ray Bradbury’s official website
• The Veldt at BestScienceFictionStories.com - a short review of the story with resources for finding it