The Illustrated Man

“The house is wife and mother now and nursemaid. Can I compete with an African veldt? Can I give a bath and scrub the children as efficiently or quickly as the automatic scrub bath can? I cannot.”

Lydia realizes too late that her and George’s foisting of their parental responsibilities onto a machine does them no favors. On its own, technology provides none of the uncomfortable rules children require to become healthy adults: hard work, bedtimes, and limits. Now Pandora’s Box has been opened, and there is no going back.

“It seemed that, at a distance, for the past month, he had heard lions roaring, and smelled their strong odor seeping as far away as his study door. But, being busy, he had paid it no attention.”

This is a typical example of Bradbury-ian foreshadowing. Like Mrs. Morris in “Zero Hour,” George’s faults as a parent go beyond his inability to communicate with his children. He even ignores what his senses tell him is true: The power of the Veldt is stretching far beyond the confines of the playroom.

“‘That isn’t important,’ said Hollis. And it was not. It was gone. When life is over it is like a flicker of bright film, an instant on the screen, all of its prejudices and passions condensed and illumined for an instant on space, and before you could cry out, ‘There was a happy day, there a bad one, there an evil face, there a good one,’ the film burned to a cinder, the screen went dark.”

Bradbury’s characters often consider the ephemerality or even pointlessness of life in the face of death. He does not shy away from this sort of existential dread.