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Ray BradburyA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
“The house is wife and mother now and nursemaid. Can I compete with an African veldt? Can I give a bath and scrub the children as efficiently or quickly as the automatic scrub bath can? I cannot.”
Lydia realizes too late that her and George’s foisting of their parental responsibilities onto a machine does them no favors. On its own, technology provides none of the uncomfortable rules children require to become healthy adults: hard work, bedtimes, and limits. Now Pandora’s Box has been opened, and there is no going back.
“It seemed that, at a distance, for the past month, he had heard lions roaring, and smelled their strong odor seeping as far away as his study door. But, being busy, he had paid it no attention.”
This is a typical example of Bradbury-ian foreshadowing. Like Mrs. Morris in “Zero Hour,” George’s faults as a parent go beyond his inability to communicate with his children. He even ignores what his senses tell him is true: The power of the Veldt is stretching far beyond the confines of the playroom.
“‘That isn’t important,’ said Hollis. And it was not. It was gone. When life is over it is like a flicker of bright film, an instant on the screen, all of its prejudices and passions condensed and illumined for an instant on space, and before you could cry out, ‘There was a happy day, there a bad one, there an evil face, there a good one,’ the film burned to a cinder, the screen went dark.”
Bradbury’s characters often consider the ephemerality or even pointlessness of life in the face of death. He does not shy away from this sort of existential dread.
By Ray Bradbury
A Graveyard for Lunatics
A Graveyard for Lunatics
Ray Bradbury
All Summer In A Day
All Summer In A Day
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A Sound Of Thunder
A Sound Of Thunder
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Dandelion Wine
Dandelion Wine
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Dark They Were, and Golden Eyed
Dark They Were, and Golden Eyed
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Death is a Lonely Business
Death is a Lonely Business
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Fahrenheit 451
Fahrenheit 451
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Marionettes, Inc.
Marionettes, Inc.
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Selected from Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed
Selected from Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed
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Something Wicked This Way Comes
Something Wicked This Way Comes
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The Halloween Tree
The Halloween Tree
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The Martian Chronicles
The Martian Chronicles
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The Other Foot
The Other Foot
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The Pedestrian
The Pedestrian: A Fantasy in One Act
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There Will Come Soft Rains
There Will Come Soft Rains
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The Toynbee Convector
The Toynbee Convector
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The Veldt
The Veldt
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Zero Hour
Zero Hour
Ray Bradbury