Sophie Racine

SPES #1

Figurative language portrays the main message of The

Pedestrian, which is the dangers of technology. The Pedestrian is
a short story about a normal man living in a dystopian world taken
over by technology. Leonard Mead is the only person in his
community who has not been taken over by the screen of a TV
which everyone else is addicted to. Throughout the story, many
literary devices are used to show how much of an impact
technology has had on his society. While walking down the street
he thinks, “...or there were whisperings and murmurs where a
window in a tombstone like building was still open”, meaning he is
metaphorically comparing the homes along the street to a
graveyard. He also says, “The tombs, ill-lit by television light,
where the people sat like the dead, the gray or multicolored lights
touching their faces, but never really touching them”, comparing
the homes of people to tombstones, and the people in them as
dead, because they watch and listen, but do not comprehend.
The streets are desolate now because people no longer go
outside, they sit in their homes and watch TV. Mead also says
through a metaphor, “During the day it was a thunderous surge of
cars...But now these highways, too, were like streams in a dry
season, all stone and bed and moon radiance,” meaning that the
roads are empty now because people don’t leave the inside. He
describes next how the crime rate has dropped to none because
no one has time to go outside anymore. The police are also on
the brink of extinction seeing there is no crime to fight, “Crime was
ebbing; there was no need now for the police, save for this one
car wandering the empty streets.” The author of this story is trying
to tell the readers through examples of figurative language that
Sophie Racine

technology is a very powerful thing, and if we are not careful, this

dystopian world could be the future.