Compare And Contrast The Pedestrian And There Will Come Soft Rains

Ray Bradbury’s “August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains” and Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron”, both portray visions of a dystopian future. In “August 2026”, everyone has been wiped out by a nuclear disaster, while in “Harrison Bergeron”, the US government has created a society where everyone is equal. Although these stories have very different characters and plots, the central themes and settings are very similar to each other and how they are perceived by the reader. In these stories, Bradbury and Vonnegut wrote around a central theme intended so that the reader can relate to it: what may become of us in the future. As such with many short stories portraying dystopian societies, they both depict bad events such as nuclear disasters and evil dictators.

Technology has deprived the citizens in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and “The Pedestrian” their freedom to think with depth and the meaningful, social interactions that make up the quality of life.

In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury discusses the lack of interest in reading books and how the advancement of technology contributed to the lifestyle of the population. This world that Bradbury exhibits in Fahrenheit 451 lacks the interest of books. With advancement of technology: wall tvs, cars that go 150 mph at least, and even education is affected; the children learn from a tv. New technology has declined the popularity in reading so much that it was against the law to read altogether. “There was no longer need of firemen for the old purposes.

“The Pedestrian” and “There will come soft rains” is about how technology took over humanity in certain ways like us not getting out of our houses and not be productive or that technology has destroyed nature. The Pedestrian is about this guy who is walking around in the park looking at houses and all of the sudden he gets arrested because he was walking and in the future nobody gets out of their houses because not a lot of people go out of their houses and “There will come soft rains” has the same problem in the future except that the problem is that technology has destroyed nature and is now full of destroyed houses, buildings, and even the city has a radioactive glow. “There will come soft

In the year 2052, Mr. Leonard Mead takes his traditional evening stroll through the neighborhood at eight o’clock. Everyone else in the city is tuned into their televisions sets at night. During this particular day in November he takes in his surroundings of the city. The direction he walks doesn’t matter. Bradbury gives a warning of what the future might look like when technology shapes and conforms a whole society.

Could you ever imagine living in a world where books were not allowed, houses were fireproof, and firemen started fires instead of putting them out? Ray Bradbury created this dystopian society of backwards thinking in his novel Fahrenheit 451. When he wrote the book, during the Cold War, the United States was beginning to censor many things and his fear of what it would turn into inspired him to write this novel. In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury overly exaggerates a future society from where the United States in the 1950’s was heading through loss of humanity from television and the theme of censorship by; yet, the symbol of rebirth detracts from the overall effect of exaggeration.

In Ray Bradbury’s “August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains” it deals with how our way of living is isolated from nature and other human contact. Ray Bradbury loathed computer, despite his writings about all things futuristic. He also experience an horrible tragedies at the age of 15, he saw a car crash in Los Angeles and five people died in that crash. He said “it was the worst mistake I ever made in my life” and he used that fear and passed on to others the fear he was taught in his stories. It is self-evident in August 2026 on the fear of technology completely isolating the entire field on which it stands.

Our society has come a long way since the 50s, but even more changes are yet to come. In the 50s we did not have personal computers as we do today. We were terrified of the Cold War and it influenced the two stories that we compare here. In the story "August 2026", by Ray Bradbury, Bradbury wrote about a dilapidated world where people relied solely on technology. This story s being compared to "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Vonnegut has a different perspective of the future. He paints a picture of a society where everyone is equal. Literature is important to tell stories of the past present and future.

Have you ever hoped of once going to a cleaner planet one we think about not destroying? Oh, I forgot, our world has been just like that, then we just lit it on fire. Ray Bradbury illustrated two short stories called “The Veldt” the and “August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains”, what both of these stories have in common was they were made both composed in 1950 which was an enormous advance in technology and also an atomic bomb that ended World War II. To be specific “The Veldt” was based on the bomb attack in Hiroshima and Nagasaki that killed about 90,000–146,000 people in Hiroshima and 39,000–80,000 in Nagasaki and half of those was on the first day. “The Veldt” was based on the rise in technology that started in 1950. Therefore a common theme that Ray Bradbury shows in both of these stories is that the world is a canvas and a person can not erase the colors but only color over it.

Technology has grown exponentially nowadays and has significantly developed in more routes than one; it has reached the point of relatively becoming a part of an individual’s daily life, where reliance on it has become a necessary habit in the present world. Individuals have indicated that their capability to spell words has diminished because of their dependence on technology to aid them, alongside a variety of different allegations that blames technology for debilitating society. Technology, however, is also humankind’s curse. It has even been accepted that technology will eventually lead to a mankind’s extinction. This is the warning that Ray Bradbury is delivering to the readers in his short story, “There Will Come Soft Rains”. In his short satirical story, readers were introduced to a civil war of sorts, between technology and nature. It is evident that Ray Bradbury’s short story foresees that the not so distant future will be dystopian by clearly showing how technology will lead to society’s own demise, portraying the lack of human emotion, and by describing the extinction of mankind and nature.

In the end, life is too precious to stare at 5 or 50 inch screen, to create, to do, to see, to feel, to learn. Ray Bradbury illustrates this and tries to spread this in a form of a warning to Americans. To make Americans think about the distractions and what humans are fully capable of. whether, the distraction comes from technology, the media, and even people. Humans themselves control their own lives, nobody should dictate, censor and prevent individual thought, It is only up to the person to realize this.

It appears that his thoughts were a product of World War II and the horror of the atomic blast in Japan. He also saw the creation of television, airplane travel and other fast pace technological advances. Bradbury appears to be uncomfortable with technology and writes his short stories to hint about the effects it may have on culture. “Much of what occurs in Bradbury’s stories are within that twilight where fear or wonder replaces a sense of normal reality” (Barr). This statement is typical of Bradbury’s works because he uses futuristic habitats and describes his characters in unusual situations. Although the critics have a difficult time defining Ray Bradbury as either a science fiction writer or a fantasy writer, it is evident that Bradbury was a humanitarian who wrote of social corruption and that he used both science fiction and fantasy to prove his

Declaring that World War II changed the world may sound like either a massive understatement or a trivialization of the discord; however, the simple fact is that the war transformed everything, including the ushering of a new technological age. From pressurized cabins in airplanes to penicillin, the results of government-funded research began to encroach on ordinary households. A majority of these innovations led to more comfortable lifestyles. Briefly, however, the world witnessed the adverse effects of technology on mankind, specifically with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Author Ray Bradbury offers insight into the destructive potential of this new age through two of his short-story dystopias: “The Pedestrian” (1951) and “August

Through the use of stylistic devices and character, Bradbury conveys his theme of the destructiveness of technology. He shows the reader that if technology reaches a point where it is doing daily chores and simple tasks for society, then we

In the modern world, we are increasingly categorized by our technological devices. Our cellphones, cars, and computers define our identities, rather than our bodies. We are losing the ability to amuse ourselves in the outside world. But it is our connection to nature, stripped of technology, which is essential to our individuality, not the programs we watch on television—or the appearance of our cellphones. Bradbury’s dystopian story provides a warning that is clearly not being heeded. Although we may have more technological