The+Veldt

The Veldt: By Ray Bradbury

Summary In __The Veldt__ their is a nursery in a futuristic home and when one walks into the nursery it can portray what ever it is you want to see. In the story two parents, George and Lydia, go into the nursery and realize that it looks like Africa. Lions appear and the parents are so startled that they bolt out the door. George goes back in to see if he can change the room with his thoughts and realizes he can't. Thinking that their son has permanently set the room to Africa they decide to wait for him to come home. When he comes home him and his sister deny that they had tampered with the room. Wendy, the daughter, runs to the room and then runs back saying it's not Africa. When the parents investigate they realize it's not Africa and believe their daughter must have changed it before they went in. That night George and Lydia talk and decide that they believe the nursery may be making their children spoiled and decide to invite over a psychologist. The psychologist tells them that they should permanently shut down the room because it's destroying the connection between them and their children, and so they do. When George tells the children that he shut down the room they burst into tears and start wailing. Lydia convinces George to allow the children one more minute in the nursery. The children start yelling for the parents to go into the nursery and when they do no one is there except for the lions. Then the lions eat them.

Setting: ﻿This short story takes place in the Hadley's house.

Protagonist(s): ﻿The protagonists are George and Lydia Hadley, the parents of Wendy and Peter. With good intensions, the parents try to get theur kids away from the obsession with the nursery and the use of technology.

Antagonist(s): The antagonists are the kids, (Wendy and Peter) because they rebel against their parents suggestions on removing the nursery and are terribly spoiled.

Forms of technology: Some forms of technology are a shoe tier, a picture painter, and the nursery which allows the children to express their imaginations in another world.

Main conflict: The main conflict is that the kids become obsessed with the nursery and get very angry and depressed when it is taken away for a short time. The nursey causes the family to become more distant from eachother and depend only on technology. Also, after a psychologist named David McClean visits he insists that the family should turn the house off for a while.

Theme(s): One theme of this short story is if you rely on technology too much it can change/ruin your life. Another theme is technology takes over some peoples lives and they don't know how to do things themselves.



Discussion Question:

1. Do you think the nursery had a positive or negative affect to the Hadley's new house?

2. Do you think that thechnology took over the Hadley's life? If so, why?

3. What is the nursery really supposed to be used for? What do the Hadley children use it for?

Useful Links

 * For a useful link of a discussion about the technology versus parenting aspect of The Veldt, click []


 * For a useful guide to the themes and plot of The Veldt, click [|here]

By: Taylor Dillon, Alyssa Palio and Mike Croydon