Pimentel 1

Michael Pimentel English 114B Professor Filbeck 26 January 2014 Word Count: 527 The Veldt In Ray Bradburys short story, The Veldt, it talks about a family that possess a home that has the ability to do anything the family needs. The things that the house can do are clean their clothes, make the familys food, and much more. The children of the family, Peter and Wendy, were extremely fond of the nursery. The nursery is a virtual reality room that can teleport them into anywhere they please by just using their imagination. The parents, George and Lydia, were extremely concerned with the amount of time the children were in the nursery. The reason why they were so concerned with the room was that the children became so dependent on the nursery so much that they alienated themselves from their parents. In order to end the dependence on the nursery, they bring in a psychologist named David McClean. He determined that the family needed to take action and leave the house. The parents agreed with what the psychologist said. The children were obviously really unhappy with the decision that their parents made. The children beg their parents to let them use the nursery just one more time. The parents allow the children to go to the nursery one more time. When the parents go back into the room to get the children, they find themselves stuck in the room because the children locked the door from the outside. What the parents discover in the nursery is that the lions were going toward them. In the end, Mr. McClean find the children eating lunch in the Veldt while in the nursery he finds that the lions are eating the simulated remains of the childrens parents.

Pimentel 2

This short story is to portray what the future can create. As time goes by, the technology that we have continues to get more and more advanced making things extremely easy for people. The Veldt is significant because it is a possible thing that can be created in the future. Nobody can predict the future obviously, but based off of the technological things that happen over time it seems that it may become reality. The villains of this story are the children. The reason why is because they allowed their own parents to perish just for their own personal gain. This also connects with the significance of this world and our world today. Children in the world we live in today value family as the number one thing in their lives. However, the world of the Veldt has become so advanced in technology that the children no longer need their parents because their technology can do everything the children need. Pretty much the technology that the family had made the parents become irrelevant to them. The house is full of dead bodies it seemed. It felt like a mechanical cemetery. So silent. This quote pretty much dictates the relationship in the family. The silence represents that was terrible communication between the children and the parents, and it also shows how easy it was for the children to see their parents be eaten by the lions.