The Veldt by Ray Bradbury tells the story of the Hadley family living in a futuristic world where technology and the home are deeply intertwined. Despite the story being written and published in the early 1950’s, the technology is neither outdated or beyond belief for today’s audience. What is really interesting about the story is the light it shines on the correlation between technology and interfamilial relationships. A negative affect is shown with both a husband-wife relationship and parent-child relationship, but this post will focus on the latter.
When George and Lydia (the parents) first enter into the nursery that their children (Peter and Wendy) continuously transform into the veldt, they are chased out by vicious lions. Lydia, being much more upset over the subject tells George that they need to keep their children out of the nursery so that they no longer go into the dangerous, and in her opinion, scary African veldt. George goes on to say, “You know how difficult Peter is about that. When I punished him a month ago by locking it for even a few hours — the way he lost his temper! And Wendy too. They live for the nursery.” The abnormal parent-child relationship between the Haldey’s is first made evident in the story during this quote. Not many parents would consider their children’s unhappiness due to a punishment, but in this instance, George does.
Bradbury expands on the abnormal parent-child relationship in the next scene when he says “Wendy and Peter were at a special plastic fair across town. They had called home earlier to say they’d be late.” It is later revealed that after the two 10-year-old children arrive home via their helicopter, they have already eaten a dinner of strawberry ice-cream and hot dogs. Again, this expands on the idea that the children are running the family in this future, not the parents.
The interesting thing about this story is the similarities it shares to current parent-child relationships with the addition of new technologies in our lives. A quote in the Journal of Family Relations says that, “parent’s roles have diminished because children… are more adept at using communicative technologies than adults… As a result, parents may not be aware of the websites their children are visiting… Parents have to walk a line between trusting the blocking software and addressing the issue directly with their children.” This quote can easily be transformed into making sense in the context of The Veldt:
George and Lydia’s roles as parents have diminished because their children are content with living off of the various technologies in the home… As a result, their relationship with their children has become so insubstantial that they have no idea why their children keep imagining the veldt inside of the nursery, or why they treat them with such little respect… However, George and Lydia have to be careful because turning off the nursery completely and taking away the thing that their children love so dearly could have dire consequences.
Knowing what happens at the end of the story really puts the last part of the quote and matching transformation into context. George and Lydia tried to talk to their children directly throughout the middle of the story, but when nothing changed, they ultimately decided to lock the nursery, essentially using a “blocking software” to get their kids to stop returning to the veldt. Little did they know that kids, especially technologically savvy kids like Peter and Wendy, will always find away around a block, even if it involves arranging the murder of their own parents…
Works Cited
Hertlein, Katherine M. "Digital Dwelling: Technology in Couple and Family Relationships." Family Relations, vol. 61, no. 3, 2012, pp. 374-387.
Kathleen Paxtor:
ReplyDeleteI thought that The Veldt really could be integrated into today’s world because technology does play such a huge role in our lives. As technology increases so do the way the kids interact with it. This reminds of when my parents grounded me, many years ago, from my phone and I refused to give it to them so I just hid it. So my parents called the company and deactivated it thinking that you couldn’t use it because it was deactivated. Little did they know that everything worked on it by using WiFi. That was how I got around my parents and as I’ve gotten older I have seen how children have become so tech savvy.
I found the story very interesting when I first read it for the discussion purpose, it made me sad knowing that the kids are more connected and rely on the nursery room than their own parents. In fact this issue seems to appear in the generation that we are in. People are more comfortable on being on social media and being around technology than spending time with beloved ones and exploring outside the technology bubble. It is not deniable that it is good to let your kids know what new technologies are out there, but there should be a limit on what and when to use it in order to maintain the relationship outside the technologhy world.
ReplyDelete-Weini W.
I think this post is very well phrased and you have plenty of textual evidence to support your claims, which is great. I think what Bradbury says through his stories is very interesting and ahead of his time. It's crazy to read them today when a lot of the technology he describes doesn't seem that outlandish. I can definitely see connections from this story to today's technology. I think technology plays a huge role in kids' lives, including activities and education. I like the connections you made of the parents having diminished roles as technology took over and created a huge presence in the kids' lives.
ReplyDelete- Bailey West
I think it is interesting seeing the cover picture of the kids holding the lions, because when I read this I thought the kids were the lions, and in their imaginations they were able to control the lions to kill their parents. Some clues I used for this, is that we never really see the kids and the lions together, it always seems that when the parents went in the veldt, they couldn't always see the kids but we could always see the lions, or maybe I am forgetting now that they were in the same place. Another clue is at the end after the parents have been killed by the lions, the story said "the lions were done feeding. They moved to the water hole to drink.", and then the girl ask the man who enters if he would like some tea, and this made the hairs stand up on my neck because I thought it was a clear indication that they ate their parents. There is also a sense of technology creating a riff between families, and we are seeing it now more than ever, we are in a society that is basically ruled by our gadgets and quality family time is hard to come by when everyone is in the same room but aren't talking because of the thing happening on a screen. I guess this is the same argument they made about television, but when everyone has a TV in their pocket, the riff is continuing to widen.
ReplyDelete-Carter
Your post was very well put. I feel 'The Veldt' could be a technological and or cultural stand in for anything the seeks to supplant traditionally interpersonal roles that parents have with their child or children which is extremely important for said child or children's development. Much like most think I don't thing the advent and integration of these pieces of technology and cultural ideas are detrimental to child development wholesale. The danger lies specifically in adults who choose and or lack the ability to moderate their child or children's access to these things. Or their reliance on it to raise their children for them.
ReplyDelete-Kenneth
I enjoy the story, and I love how you show the evidence and examples of how technologies these days could make a child more addicted to it. For example, today you have these bratty teens playing with there touchscreen phones all day without focusing on their studies or doing something more important other than concentrating on their phone. They’re too busy surfing over social media such as Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram just make themselves look famous. Plus, what happened to those old times when little kids play action figures, dolls, toy cars, toy trucks or another different kind of toys. Now, these days little kids can get to play a tablet which is a touchscreen tab full of game apps they want to play. Let’s face it; things will be difficult for these kids nowadays to stop getting attached to these technologies.
ReplyDelete-Kendra ZeMenye
When I first read this story I felt sickened by the lack of parental control the parents had within their children's lives. As I delved deeper into the story I was able to draw the connection between the reliance on technology and the lack of relationship. What really stood out to me was just how dominate the children were over their parents. I believe this is due to the parents relying on the technology to parent their children for them rather than put in the work. This is similar to a lot of today's parents wit how they would rather stick the children in front of a phone, tablet, or television than actually have to parent them. The comparison of shutting down the Veldt to that of blocking technology was spot on. Blocking technology is hit or miss at best and is most of the time unreliable. Shutting down the Veldt likewise made the children worse as they had no respect built in for their parents and instead relied entirely on technology.
ReplyDelete-Alan Donoho
While it cant be compared to the way things are now, I believe that Bradbury already was witnessing technology take the place of functions that we should be able to do ourselves. He was right on the nose when it came to how children are no longer parented but managed. There isn't any parental authority, there isn't any guidance, there isn't anything. Children are fresh out the womb and know how to navigate a tablet and from then on are glued to their screens. I watched a mother try to take a tablet away from her elementary aged kid and he screamed and threw a fit that would make the sweetest angel lose her cool. Just like the children in the story.
ReplyDeleteDianesa Sanon