Brief Look at Ray Bradbury’s “The Pedestrian”

    In “The Pedestrian,” Ray Bradbury shows us a world in which technology, and in particular television, has become the sole source of leisure and entertainment for the population; as a writer the main character, Mr. Mead, represents not just a profession but rather the whole of human creativity. Through the plot structure, character development, and dialogue, the story warns of the alienizing power of mass produced culture and its potential to become a tool to control society.

    In the first of two parts, we meet Mr. Mead and a city of three million people where “In ten years of walking by night or day, for thousands of miles, he had never met another person walking, not one in all that time.” (P.1). With this setting Bradbury is emphasizing the non-conformity of his character, the only pedestrian. Who mocks the TV shows being watched by the people locked up in their “tomb-like building” (P.1), highlighting the mass production nature of the content when he says that it’s “Eight-thirty p.m.? Time for a dozen assorted murders? A quiz? A revue? A comedian falling off the stage?” (P.1), knowing that at least one of those is right; and Bradbury hints at the power of mass culture to control society by saying that there is only need for one police car in the entire city.

    With the setting firmly established, the climax of the story comes when Mr. Mead is confronted by the one automated police car, a symbol that places authority in the hands of technology, and thus the second part of the story is a dialogue that starts with Mead saying: “I guess you'd call me a writer.” And the Car replying: “No profession,” (P.2) to then devolve to a point in which the urgency and repetition of words when the Car says “Walking, just walking, walking?” (P.2) along with the lack of comprehension of the concept of “Walking for air. Walking to see.” (P.3), shows Mr. Mead as a complete outlier who belongs in “the Psychiatric Centre for Research on Regressive Tendencies.” (P. 4), where conformity can be achieved by curing him of his avoidance of TV.

    In conclusion, Bradbury’s division of the story into two parts first presents Television and mass consumption as a potential means of control, and then the idea that eventually authority will be given to technology, and those who do not conform will be incarcerated.