The Veldt

The Veldt is fiction literature written by Ray Bradbury. The story is about two children,  Wendy and Peter,  and their parents, George and Lydia. It takes place in a smart house, which does everything  they want without them doing nothing. Bradbury begins the story when Lydia asked George to check out a smart room which called the “nursery.” This room shows everything the person imagine and it was designed to help the children study, and also have fun with it. The problem was that the children  are imagining things that they were not supposed to be imagining. When the parents enter the nursery, they were surprise when they saw a desert with lions eating A zebra or a baby giraffe, hot sun, and wild animals.  Bradbury uses foreshadow when George found his old wallet  in the nursery. When Lydia asked him what did he found in the nursery George  stated : “An old wallet of mine,” he said. He showed it to her. The smell of hot grass was on it… and the smell of a lion. It was wet from being in the lion’s mouth, there were tooth marks on it, and there was dried blood on both sides.” This show that the parent are going to be eaten by the lions. All these problems  where because of the main conflict of the story, which was “technology vs humans.”

In veldt, the technology has ruined the relationship between the parents and children. The technology  of the house has replaced the relation of the father and the mother to the children. When they need to eat, dress for school, study, have fun, and even go to sleep, the house provided all that. As David the psychologist said: ”You’ve let this room and this house replace you and your wife in your children’s feelings. This room is their mother and father, far more important in their lives than their real parents.” They did not want their parent any more. Matter of fact they wanted them dead, as we saw at the end of the story. The technology planted hatred from the children toward their parents. When George turned off the nursery, his son peter cried so much. He also showed the hatred that the technology planted inside of him when he told his father phrases like, “Oh, I hate you!” and “I wish you were dead!”.  And Peter did not say these words because he was mad or upset. He really hated his father and mother because he and his sister tricked their parent when they called them, “Daddy, Mommy, come quick – quick!” When the parent rushed to check out on their children, they closed the door of the nursery on them and they let the lions eats them.

As an engineering student, this story affect me because I see how technology is destroying relationship  in our era. According to Psychology Today website “A new study from Brigham Young University examined how technology interferes with relationships. The researchers concluded that “technoference” can be damaging not just to a relationship but to your psychological health as well.” We are getting advance in technology, but we are going backwards in relationships toward other human beings.

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