An opinion piece on the short story The Veldt, by Ray Bradbury

Essay by Ice_CubeJunior High, 9th gradeA-, January 2005

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The story of "The Veldt", is an interesting story which concerns the issue of how modern technology can destroy the typical united family. In my personal opinion, this story has the most absolute lack of any characterization, and is all about how regular children can destroy, or even kill their whole family without any hesitation or misery.

The story begins with the mother of the family, who has quite a generic name. We are given no information of the characters background and how they came to the point in time they are now. The lines "Happylife Home" and the familiar room settings like the parent's bedroom and the nursery give you a sense that this is a typical suburban home of the time. The mother seems alarmed or confused about something, "the nursery is...different now than it was", this at first might lead you to believe the mother has true individual characteristics.

However, when you read on, you see the stereotyped reactions to every situation that comes about, the parents then say, "nothing's too good for our children".

Later in the story, the parents discuss the problems of the incredible house and nursery, "The house is wife, mother, and nursemaid, can I compete with it?", and the father has a generic answer "But I thought that's why we bought this house". The parents in the story look upon their children's needs as services instead of ways of expressing any love or care.

In the story we never learn anything about the children except for their obsession with the nursery, "I don't want to do anything but look and listen and smell; what else is there to do?". When the parents tell the children the idea of shutting down the computerized house "for a vacation",