The Veldt

Have you ever imaged living in luxury? Of having kitchens that cook your food, beds that rock you to sleep and rooms that project your imagination onto its walls. Ray Bradbury depicts this is the type of house in his short story The Veldt. George and Lydia Hadley are parents to Peter and Wendy, their ten year old son and daughter. Together they live in a house of luxury, one luxury in particular that is a source of concern for Lydia—the nursery. The nursery is a room for the children which projects whatever they imagine onto its walls right down to the smells, sounds, and sensations. This room, which was previously intended to be a positive outlet of creativity for the children, has become a channel towards destructive thoughts rather than a release.

Lydia discovers this when she notices the children have been imagining the veldts of Africa filled with ravenous lions, blistering heat, and most disturbing of all death. Worried, George and Lydia call their psychologist, David McClean, to evaluate the situation. Acting as an outside point of view, McClean informs Lydia and George that they’ve built their lives around technology and let it replace the relationship with their children. This is shown when peter says to his father, “’I don’t want to do anything but look and listen and smell; what else is there to do?’” By saying this, we see how addicted to technology the children have become, and in turn have become lazy.

In an effort to save their family, they decide to turn their house off, including the nursery. George is convinced this is necessary saying, “’Now we’re really going to start living. Instead of being handled and massaged, were going to live.’” However, when the children hear about this they throw a fit and beg to be let back in the nursery for just a minute longer. Bending under the tantrum, George and Lydia allow it. Suddenly they hear screams and race into the nursery to see what Peter and Wendy are up, only for the door to unexpectedly shut behind them. They find themselves in their children’s imagined African veldt surrounded by lions. The story ends and we are left under the impression that the lions have eaten the parents, and the children are free to use their nursery as they please.