Pedestrian

Being close to someone that has a family member that is mentally challenged, I can see a few points of view in this story.

So called "unbalanced" people in modern society seem to be hidden away and grouped together. What some people fail to see is that they are exactly the same as us; they are people with feelings, morals, values and a family.

In this story, he does have a problem to a slight degree. But he is mainly a nonconformist as others have stated. His "unbalanced" side is that he talks to things that are non-living. Now this could be because he looks at himself and believes that everyone else thinks that these objects don't have feelings or values, the same way the society thinks of him. So he believes that talking to the objects might make them feel better, like when people talk to him.

 When he gets taken to the "Psychiatric Center for Research on Regressive Tendencies," I believe that this is a way of showing people that it’s not correct. As people have stated, in this story he doesn't need to be taken there. Now apply this to a real life situation, and I'm not kidding you, but this stuff DOES happen, as sad as it is.

A few last thoughts.

Most of the books portrayed here are about somebody who doesn't fit in the system. This man (or girl, or seagull) is shunned by others and often it is too late to fix the problems that he warned about. A good modern story about restriction of human rights can be found at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html Anybody who wishes to do so can read it and draw there own conclusions about freedom and safety of restrictions and whether Bradbury was right to warn us.

PS. You can read the "Pedestrian" at http://www.raybradbury.ru/library/story/51/15/0. It IS hard to understand a story without the whole context.

America ultimately understood that liberty shouldn’t be affected, maybe with the help of Bradbury's books. Bradbury had just written what could happen if any kind of outstanding behaviour would be considered as potential danger for the organization of the society. Another Bradbury's novel I like most, "Fahrenheit 451" (and lots of other actually) tell about the same thing -- how the government starts to tell people what to do every moment of life "for the good of society's safety". 451^oF (233^oC) is the burning temperature of a paper and main idea is that all evil in the world is because of too much knowledge. So the books as a carrier of the knowledge must be burned out.

In "Pedestrian" people had just stopped buying (and read) books, but in "Fahrenheit 451" the books were outlawed -- and burned. In "Pedestrian" all people sit in their houses in the evening, watching TV propaganda ("the United States Cavalry ... to the rescue" is clearly just something to show how brave the American army and police is and, generally, who are the "good guys" of America). No one buys any books, because there is no reason – after work comes TV, the stuff recommended by the government, where "the people sat like the dead, ... lights touching their faces, but never really touching them". This people are becoming zombies, not thinking, not feeling, just doing what they are told.

In "Pedestrian" the only normal human being is unemployed writer who is isolated at the end, in "Fahrenheit 451" mankind just found another carrier for knowledge.

tran0143 said "you’d ... expect Mr. Mead to conform by the society’s expectations” – why should a normal person conform to this mummifying? Government is supposed to work for the people, not make them all the same, easy to manipulate.

You say “I disagree with all you people who said that “Mr. Leonard Mead is not unbalanced.””. What do you call unbalanced? Sitting all evening in front of TV, going to sleep, waking up, going to work in a car, coming home, and going to the TV box again – is it balanced? Never walking in the streets at all (“The cement was vanishing under flowers and grass. In ten years ... never met another person walking”) is normal? To me this ordered life of work-TV-sleep-work resembles the pattern of behaviour in a concentration camp (work-entertainment-sleep-work). I think that is exactly what Bradbury tried to warn people about – the government control over people must be balanced by the people themselves. Otherwise the people might be turned into a gray mass – it would be easier for the government to control them then.

The novel is not about particular man. The novel is about mankind and its future. Where is the balance point between personal privacy and obligation to the society? What is the society itself and what is the place of the person in the society? How secure the society would be if everybody just shut up their mouth? I do not think that safety of the graveyard described in this novel is a best future for mankind.

to nobody in particular.

If you look and could not see
it does not mean with necessity
that you have problem with you eyes.
It could mean that you have problem with you brain ;) mind.

Me. Now.

Jean De La Fontaine had written about The Turtle and The Rabbit. Does it mean he was a zoologist?

Before starting to discuss Mr. Mead obligation to society it is nice to understand what society a novel is written about, what is the essence of the novel. What was the life that time?. What was hidden behind The Turtle and The Rabbit?

The times Bradbury wrote the novel (fifties of last century, WWII just finished) are associated with name of American Senator McCarthy and "witch hunting". McCarthy, probably, was not evil by his nature, he just thought that people’s liberty should be sacrificed for good of society (or state, or government) security, as some people here think too.

Mr Mead was just independent, which was a total anachronism, a rarity fit for a special centre and a museum.

Now I can't remember who said what.  Yes, this story was written in 1951 and comments on a time 100 years into the future.  But modern Denver, Colorada has very few footpaths, because, being the home of the Ford motos car, people though walking would become redundant.  Similarly, I wonder now what the future holds for my grandchildren.  I grew up in a house with sheep outside my bedroom window (Now that house in Panorama is well within the suburbs). I can remember the day the man next door shot a snake on the road.  I can remember the horse that pulled the baker's cart (that is now at the Show each year).  We had chooks and fruit trees.  How many kids today get to pull a fresh warm peach off the tree and have real juice dribble down their chins?  How many think 'peaches' are that tastless offering from Woolworths or squishy like the tinned variety?

So I think that this story is asking us to think carefully about the type of future we want for our descendents.  Is it 'Brave new world' that shows characters going to the movies that have complete surround sound, with added smells and other experiences? Sci-fi writing gives us the opportunity to wonder about our future.

PS There is a spell checker on the panel above.

I believe that Mr. Leonard Mead is completely sane. He is a writer so he's allowed to seem a little different. Writers need inspiration and what better source than inanimate objects. Sure, most people take inanimate objects for granted but a few of us actually see the value in their existence. I believe that Mr. Mead did not deserve to be carted off to a psychiatric ward just for looking for inspiration but because I don’t know the context it is hard to make a firm conclusion.

I have to agree with Morgan. Mr Mead is not imbalanced he is one of the “normal” people that are left. I mean he still move and goes out side and I think that makes him saner then the rest of the people.

The book I think is a challenge to question my ideas about the future and what I want it to be like.

I think most people have hit the nail on the head with this one. 

“Mr Leonard Mead is not unbalanced. He is merely a nonconformist, fighting against the trend of society into seclusion and lassitude.” – stok0057

Exactly. The way the text portrays the society in 2053, it appears very controlling and restricted. Mr. Mead is simply a person who can appreciate the values of freedom and enjoyment. He is able to think ‘outside the square’ and hold a mirror up to himself and the rest of society.  

It is a very valuable skill to be able to step outside of the day-to-day droll of life and reflect upon the world around you. Mr. Mead goes walking every night so that he can escape from the monotonous bore of 2053AD life.

Ray Bradbury’s writing style shows us how cold and harsh his prediction of the future will be. And who’s to say that’s not going to happen? There is no way for us to predict the future and how lifestyle trends will affect the human race.

Cheers

I am afraid i also have to agree with most of the people here and say that Mr Mead is not 'crazy' or imbalenced. I think that he is just tring to fight the trend because in a way he is a little old fashioned.

I think these days the government is very indecisive towards what they do and how they do it. For example is a muslim man may come to australia and rape an australian woman and he said she was not covered and she deserved it, and he will probably not get a sentice or anything but if that was a normal australian thing then he would get screwed over. 

He would be considered almost normal if he lived in our society….however, in a civilization controlled by manipulative junks of metal, you’d think, or expect Mr. Mead to conform by the society’s expectations. For a life so orderly, someone walking down the street talking to houses isquite absurd don’t you think? Then again, he might be lonely… Sure, many of us talk to rocks, plush toys, photos or other inanimate objects, but that is because our lives aren’t under the continuous watch of merciless eyes.

In countries that have been overpowered by religious dictatorships, that do not allow their citizens to read the Bible, who in their right mind would walk about town carrying a Bible? They’d be punished! Penalized! Prosecuted! By putting forth these arguments, I am not agreeing that this type of society is, in my eyes utopian. I do believe in freedom and I do want peace… but seriously, if the government implemented a law,we are expected to abide by it. If not… we would be punished, or penalized. That is exactly what happened to Mr. Mead. He was not conforming by this society’s laws, and so is taken to a Psychiatric Centre.

This is just my opinion on Mr. Leonard Mead. If this blog was about the way the society is run then I'd have a much different view.

The tendency to talk to inanimate objects isn’t really that unusual. There are times when talking with inanimate objects seem a more valid option that speaking with animate objects. He does not lament in vain because there is no one to hear him speak, it doesn’t really matter. Even if people were to hear, they would probably not listen, let alone pity. Talking to houses, though they cannot answer his inner distress, they are better than humans, for they do not intercept his tale.

It is perfectly normal to talk to inanimate objects, usually it is driven by the fear of how "people" would react. 

In reply to the comment at the top of the page,

I think that Mr Mead shouldn’t have been sent to a psychiatric centre for what he was doing. I mean who doesn’t talk to lifeless objects every now and then? Whether it is a plush toy, a picture of a loved one or even a house, we have all talked to a lifeless object once in our life times. It just so happened that Mr Mead liked to talk to the houses on a regular basis, I don’t think there is anything wrong with this, who else is he going to talk too. As he said no one else walked the streets and he obviously didn’t have a pet. I think the robot police car was being a bit too harsh, he should have consulted a human cop – if they still exist. But would the human cop be even harsher? After all they are the ones that created and programmed these robot cars. I don’t think that the world would ever get like this, governments having ultimate control over their citizens. Well I hope not.

From Cameron Keast