Ray+Bradbury

The Veldt
A married couple named Lydia and George own a very fancy and futuristic home in which them and their two children, Wendy and Peter. Their house is known as a Happy-life home; it does everthing from cooking to cleaning, and even changes their clothes. It includes a crystal screen called a nursery. The nursery can sense what a person is thinking and feeling and produce an unbelievably realistic moving picture in which the person can use all five senses when viewing it. One day Lydia tells George that she thinks something may be wrong with the nursery, so they walk down the hall check it out. As the walk into the nursery the once blank walls and ceiling turn into an image of an African veldt in which they can smell and feel the environment around them. They see lions off in the distance eating something that they had just killed. All of a sudden the lions spot the couple and sprint towards them; terrified they run out of the room and close the door. Lydia is still terrified that something has gone wrong and that the nursery settings are becoming too real. George assures her, however, that it is just the machinery of the room creating a realistic environment. George tells Lydia that the children have been reading a lot about Africa and that is why they have created the veldt. Lydia is still unsure of the nursery and asks George to shut it down for a few days. George isn't sure it is such a good idea because the children threw a terrible tantrum the last time he shut it down. George gives in, then Lydia tells him they should shut down the whole house because she feels useless as a mother and wife. Then a rumble comes from the door as if something hit the other side. Lydia is scared by this but George reassures her that the lions are not real. Later that day, George and Lydia are eating dinner at their automated table. George is still thinking about the events in the nursery. Because the nursery creates its environments by telepathically reading the children's thoughts, he is concerned about the images of death that the children have created. George then goes to check the nursery and change the scenery but it won't change, he then goes back to tell Lydia of his discovery. Wendy and Peter return home and their father questions them about the African scene in the nursery. They say there is no veldt, but that its a green forest. The kids take him up to the nursery and show him but George believes they are lying. Before George and Lydia leave the room, they find a wallet lying on the floor. It is one of George's old wallets. It has been chewed and has blood smears on each side. George and Lydia leave the nursery and lock the door. That night the couple are lying awake in bed discussing the nursery problem. They believe the nursery caused Wendy and Peter to become spoiled and rather separated from them. George decides that he will invite the children's psychologist, David McClean, over to take a look at the nursery to see what he thinks. A moment later, George and Lydia hear screams and the roar of lions coming from the nursery. The screams sound familiar, but the couple is not exactly sure why. The next day Peter asks his father if he is going to lock up the nursery permanently. George says that he is considering turning off the entire house for a while. Peter threatens his father that he had better not do that. Soon, David McClean arrives. George takes him to the nursery where the children are playing, which has once again been turned into an African veldt. The lions can be seen eating, off in the distance. After studying the African scene for a moment, David admits that he has a very bad feeling about what is taking place. He says that the children seem to care more about the room than they do about their parents and that the situation has become quite dangerous. He suggests tearing down the nursery. As David and George leave, George asks whether there is any way that the lions in the nursery could become real. David says he does not think so. The two then find a bloody scarf belonging to Lydia on the floor. George then decides to shut down the whole house, the children beg and plead for him to stop so he allows them to spend a few more minutes in the nursery. The children go to the nursery while Lydia and George go upstairs to change clothes. They suddenly hear the children calling them from the nursery. The parents rush into the nursery which is a veldt only to not see the children anywhere. The doors then slam closed and the couple can see the lions approaching from a distance. They then realize that those screams that had sounded so familiar were their own. The children then invite David into the house and they go to the veldt. They can see the lions feeding in the distance as the children offer David a cup of tea.

Correlation:
Abandonment is a major theme of this story. The kids are practically abandoned by their parents because this amazing house does everything a parent would do, it feeds them and takes care of them. David the physicologist even tells George, "You've 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." Thus the children became emotionally attached to the house, so when George threatened to shut off the house they were very upset.

Another theme is illusion vs. reality. The fact that George and Lydia think the nursery is just an illusion and not reality hurts them in the end of the story. George even says, "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." But this is not the truth in this story because the fact of the matter is, is that nobody really knew when it was reality or illusion.

Reflection:
This story was very unique and interesting. It was the amazing story of a futuristic house, neglectful parents, and children that are parented by a machine. The part that I found most interesting was when the screams were heard and when the bloody wallet and scarf were found. Also when the lions were seen feeding it took me a while to figure out that it was George and Lydia that the lions were actually feeding on. Since the nursery transferred the children's thoughts into images the reader had to infer that the children were imagining their parents being eaten. I found this very messed up. The kids must have been extremely attached to their artificial parents to want to kill their real parents.