ENG 1A Short Essay THE Pedestrian BY RAY Bradbury PDF

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Summary

An analysis of Ray Bradbury's intent to write the Pedestrian with symbolism and explanations....

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Lyons, Alison ENG 1A

Literary Analysis “The Pedestrian” In “The Pedestrian”, Ray Bradbury uses rhetorical devices to illustrate the seduction of technology and its influence to cause us to lose our individuality and humanity. These rhetorical devices hint that technology can consume a society into darkness. Alone, in this world of A.D 2050, “’Sometimes he would walk for hours and miles and return only at midnight to his house and on his way he would see cottages and homes with their dark windows, and it was unequal to walking through a graveyard where only the faintest of glimmers of firefly light appeared in flickers behind the windows.’” His imagery of darkness and death, portrays symbolism that Leonard Mead’s society is deathly with no life or any light, but the glimmers of viewing screens that glow in dead houses. Leonardo Mead’s civilization is compared to the metaphor of a graveyard. There is no light, no movement, no liveliness, and it is dark and empty. The swarthy complexion of “’the street was silent and long and empty, with only his shadow moving like the shadow of a hawk in mid country. If he closed his eyes and stood very still, frozen, he could imagine himself upon the center of a plain, a wintry, windless Arizona desert with no house in a thousand miles, and only dry river beds, the streets, for company.’” This depicts the solitude life that Leonard Mead has endured for years. Bradbury contrasts the intensity of the darkness with “’one house in an entire city of houses that were dark, but this one particular house had all its electric lights brightly lit, every window aloud yellow illumination, square and warm in the cool darkness. “That’s my house,” said Leonard Mead.’” Again, Bradbury uses the symbolism of

light to contrast the good among those who are enlightened and knowledgeable, to those who are ignorant and live in complete darkness. This continues to reveal the darkness and seduction of technology in Leonard Mead’s world. Ray emphasizes that technology has a huge influence on society. If we lose our humanity, consumed by technology, it could cause us to shroud ourselves in darkness....