The Pedestrian: A Fantasy in One Act

In “The Pedestrian,” Bradbury’s poetic style creates a stark contrast between the thoughtful protagonist and the controlled, robotic society he inhabits. The author uses this contrast to make his thematic cases about the dangers of social control and technology.

Beginning with the first line where he describes the city metaphorically as “silence,” Bradbury weaves the story with sensory detail, metaphors, and similes. He uses the phrase “gray phantoms” to describe the shadows of Leonard Mead’s neighbors inside their homes and writes that the protagonist’s lungs “blaze like a Christmas tree” when he inhales the chilly air (19). Since the story is told in third person limited perspective from Mead’s point of view, the narrative voice is aligned with Mead’s own thoughts and feelings, and these descriptions imply that Mead has a poetic mind and soul.

Bradbury’s use of language also gives the reader a sense of the joy that Mead takes in the simple pleasures of walking at night. He describes Mead’s “satisfaction” as he walks through the fall leaves and notes how the protagonist takes the time to examine the “skeletal pattern” of leaves. Mead’s connection with his environment and attention to detail is reminiscent of transcendentalism, an idealistic 19th-century philosophy whose followers found divinity and fulfillment in nature. Bradbury’s lyrical descriptions take up nearly the first half of the story, and like the transcendentalist works popularized by writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, they portray the outside world as a place of meditative calm. Mead is happy during his nighttime walks, observing his world and gently wondering about his neighbors’ lives, which are nearly the opposite of his own. Explicitly aligning Mead’s ideology with an earlier philosophical movement emphasizes the contrast Bradbury seeks to draw between past and future relationships between humanity and their environment.

Though Mead’s fellow city dwellers spend their time holed up in their homes at night, sitting “like the dead” in front of their television screens (21), he doesn’t seem to bear his neighbors any animosity. He simply whispers hello to each house and wonders which bland program people are watching as he passes. It seems—at first—that he can coexist peacefully in this society despite his vastly different life choices.

The tone of the story changes sharply when Mead is “stunned” by the “fierce” light of a police car. While the narration that describes the protagonist’s interior monologue remains thoughtful, the bulk of the story is overtaken by the short, staccato sentences of the police interrogation. Accusing questions are barked at Mead, who stands “fixed” in the spotlight like a pinned “museum specimen” (21). This metaphor evokes the image of a moth that has been killed and displayed in a museum for people to look at, suggesting that Mead’s joyful experience of nature is likewise being destroyed; he has gone from the observer to the observed. The metaphor also connects to the fact that his behavior is seen as a curiosity to be studied, one that is not allowed to continue existing in the wild. Before long, he will be whisked away to be a research subject at a psychiatric center.

As the “metallic” voice from the police car continues to question Mead, it becomes clear that even though his reasons for being outside are innocent, they will not be accepted. Like the metallic quality of its sound, the voice from the car represents the rigid expectations of this society. With its inquiries, the police car makes clear that Mead is supposed to be in an air-conditioned home, watching mindless TV with a wife. The fact that Mead prefers to take thoughtful walks at night is incomprehensible to this representative of social authority. One indication of this is the fact that, when Mead clarifies why he is unmarried, the police voice yells, “don’t speak unless you’re spoken to,“ showing that the conversation is one-sided (21).

The climax of the story arrives shortly afterward when the police car orders Mead to get in and he discovers there is no one in the vehicle. The robot police car is a metaphor for the futuristic society in which Mead lives: It is cold, detached, and inhuman, following patterns and protocols regardless of feelings, ideas, or explanations.

By portraying the pensive Mead and the robotic policeman as opposites, Bradbury makes the point that thinking, nature, reading, and freedom are key parts of humanity. He warns readers that if society gives itself over to technology—in this case mindless television and robot law enforcement—it will sacrifice core aspects of humanity. The contrast in characterization between Mead and the police car also suggests a possible danger of runaway technology: While Mead seems to be tolerant of his neighbors’ indulgence in television, the police car shows no flexibility toward Mead’s different preferences. This suggests that too much reliance on technology could be dangerous because it might lead to machines making decisions based on inflexible parameters. The unfairness of Mead’s arrest in this story could be one example of injustices perpetrated by decision-making machines.

In the context of the Cold War, the robot policeman’s summary arrest of the sensitive, unassuming Mead can be seen as an indictment of the Red Scare, in which suspected communist sympathizers were attacked by individuals. The fact that Mead is a writer taken to “The Psychiatric Center for Research on Regressive Tendencies” suggests that Bradbury also meant to criticize the wild mudslinging of the anti-communist crusade (22).

The association of Mead with a poetic, transcendental tone and his society with an aggressive, controlling robot highlights the human tragedies that the author sees as inherent in both repressive governments and over-reliance on technology. Whether it is television displacing the written word, nuclear weapons capable of annihilating the earth, the Communist USSR stripping its citizens of individual freedoms, or the House Un-American Activities Committee defaming artists, Bradbury uses the contrasts in “The Pedestrian” to develop the story into a powerful cautionary tale about the dangers of replacing human judgment and tolerance with automatic oversight.