The people in the society of “The Pedestrian” by Ray Bradbury have retreated into their dark living rooms to watch television. They no longer find the need to go outside or socialize with other people as they seem content to be entertained all the time. Even crime is non-existent in this society; there is only one robotic police car for the three million people living in the city. Mead is an anomaly in this society as he still enjoys taking walks, breathing fresh air, and enjoying nature. He doesn’t even own a television which makes him different from everyone else. Once a writer, Mead hasn’t written anything in years because society doesn’t demand novels, magazines, or any other kind of written print. They are so obsessed with television that they no longer feel they need the knowledge books will give them.
Mead seems so “odd” to the robot police because he doesn’t own a television, he claims he is a writer, and he is unmarried. He is so unusual in this society that the police arrest him and pack him off to the Psychiatric Center for Research on Regressive Tendencies.
The people and this society are described by Bradbury as lonely and empty, and they are “phantoms” casting shadows on the wall of their “graveyard” homes. It is a pitiful existence where people have traded entertainment for an active, involved life.
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