Personification And Symbolism In The Veldt By Ray Bradbury

The “Veldt” by Ray Bradbury tells the story of a family which has been blinded by technology told via a Third Person Limited Omniscient point of view. As a result of the integration of excessive amounts of technology, their traditional family bonds have deteriorated. They have allowed technology to take over and replace each other, resulting in the constant chipping away at their familial bonds. It shows us the extent to which their bonds have deteriorated and how towards the end, they attempt to regain a sense of normalcy, but it is too late. A crucial theme that develops towards the end is that allowing technology to take over and blind us can lead to the deterioration of traditional family bonds which Bradbury effectively illustrates via his use of symbolism, personification and irony.

Throughout the narrative, Bradbury employs the lions in order to symbolize the deterioration of traditional …show more content…
Bradbury calls the children ‘Peter and Wendy’, which is an extremely ironic reference to Peter Pan. Peter and Wendy are characters from Peter Pan, implying that they are innocent, happy and uncorrupted whereas in this case, the children are neurotic, power hungry, feel no empathy, and are completely converse to the characters in Peter Pan. The author uses irony and and causes the reader to perceive the children as extremely innocent when he says, "Wendy and Peter cheeks like peppermint candy, eyes like blue agate marbles" and reveals their true colours when "The door slammed. ‘Wendy, Peter!’ George Hadley and his wife whirled and ran back to the door." In the beginning, they are portrayed as innocent children, but at the end, they lock their own parents in the Nursery to die, which just goes to show how maniacal and mentally unhinged they really are. This just shows us how spoiling children and letting technology take over can lead to the deterioration of traditional family