


While Leonard takes his walks every evening, he has never encountered another walker. It is a dystopian setting as we follow Mr Leonard Mead as he takes his solitary walk through the deserted city. Written in 1951, The Pedestrian is set more than 100 years later in the year of A.D 2053. Let’s get right into it! The Pedestrian Summary Key Characters in The Pedestrian Context Themes Explored in The Pedestrian Analysis of The Pedestrian Studying this Text for the HSC Summary of The Pedestrian This will be a comprehensive guide to the text - whether you need help wrapping your head around the meaning of the short story or are looking for additional resources for your writing, we have you covered. Leonard protests as they pass his house, but there is no answer, and Leonard Mead is taken away.So you’ve been assigned Ray Bradbury’s The Pedestrian as one of the texts you need to conduct an analysis for in Module C: The Craft of Writing. The door slams shut, and the car rolls on. He is told that as he has no wife to provide an alibi for him, he is being taken to the Psychiatric Center for Research on Regressive Tendencies. Fearing for his safety, Leonard gets into a small, antiseptic jail cell in the back of the car. Leonard protests, but the car is insistent. The car rehashes the questions its asked Leonard again, and after finding out that he has done this every night for years, it pops the door and orders him into the car. This is where things go wrong, as Leonard does not have a viewing screen-he has no interest. The car asks Leonard for his address and he gives it to it, and the car then asks if his house is in working order, with an air conditioner and a viewing screen. The car wants to know what his purpose is, but all he can say is that he’s walking for air, he’s walking because he enjoys it. The car asks him repeatedly where he is going, but Leonard cannot give a satisfactory explanation. Leonard admits that might be true since he has not written in years-no one reads magazines or books anymore, they just watch television. Leonard explains that he is a writer, but the car marks it down as no profession. The car asks him his name, followed by his profession. After all, no need for the police since everyone is inside at night and crime is declining. Mead speculates that this might be the last police car in the city, since the last election cut the force down from three to one. Although he tries to explain what he’s doing, the car threatens to shoot him if he does not comply. The metallic voice coming from inside the car orders him to stop and put his hands up. A police car stops him, although he never sees the person inside the car-if there is a person inside the society is heavily automated. While normally his walks pass without event, this night he is not alone. The city outside is very run down, the streets damaged and the sidewalks worn and unrepaired. It is implied that he is one of, if not the only, walkers left in society, as everyone else is inside watching television. He will pause, observe briefly, and then move on before anyone inside is startled by the presence of a person outside.
#The pedestrian trueachievements windows#
He likes to look into the windows along his way, seeing the vague flickers of life and light within. He lives by himself, having never married, and so his nightly walks help him fill his time. He is the only pedestrian near his home, and has never seen another person out during the many hours that he has walked. As “The Pedestrian” opens, the year is 2053 and Leonard Mead is out for another one of his lonely evening walks. In 1989, “The Pedestrian” was adapted into an episode of The Ray Bradbury Theater, starring David Ogden Stiers as Leonard. Exploring themes such as the dangers of progress, society’s treatment of outcasts, and the potential of technology to stop serving and become a danger, “The Pedestrian” is considered a predecessor to Bradbury’s most famous work about a repressive futuristic society, Fahrenheit 451.
#The pedestrian trueachievements series#
This leads to a series of events where his unusual behavior places him in danger in a society unable to understand those who differ from the norm. He has never seen another pedestrian, and neither has the police car that finds him one night on his walk. Leonard, however, enjoys going for a nightly walk in the ruined city, something that is inexplicable to those around him. Focusing on Leonard Mead, an ordinary-seeming man, the story takes place in 2053 when television has taken over the world to such an extent that most people rarely leave their homes.

First published in 1951 in the news magazine The Reporter, it was later collected in Bradbury’s anthology T he Golden Apples of the Sun. “The Pedestrian” is a short story by American science fiction writer Ray Bradbury.
