'The Pedestrian' by Ray Bradbury
Overview
Setting: city street at night; 2053; totalitarian, restrictive society; a society in terminal
decline
Characters: Mr. Leonard Mead, a writer who 'dearly loves' to walk the streets of the city
at night – 'just to walk' ; the police car, which has no human drivers and dismisses Mr.
Mead's profession and lifestyle before arresting him
Plot: Mr Mead goes for a walk, and heads off alone into the night. He passes rows of
houses, all with the televisions on, and whispers to them as he goes past. As he turns to
head for home, a police car appears and interrogates him. Dismissing his professional as
non-existent, and regarding his lifestyle to be ‘regressive’, the police car takes Mr Mead
away.
Themes:
 dehumanisation of society through over-dependence on technology
 the impact of television on the lives in individuals
 the roots and effects of loneliness
Notes
 Setting: City street at night
◦ cities are generally imagined to be busy, energetic places, even at night. This
expectation is completely contrasted with the reality of the setting in the
story, which is portrayed as deserted and, indeed, desolate.
▪ “To enter out into that silence that was the city at eight o'clock of a misty
evening in November...”
▪ “...peer down long moonlit avenues of pavement in four directions,
deciding which way to go, but it really made no difference...”
▪ “...on his way he would see the cottages and homes with their dark
windows, and it was not unequal to walking in a graveyard where only the
faintest glimmers of firefly light appeared in flickers behind the windows.”
▪ “The street was silent and long and empty, with only his shadow moving
like the shadow of a hawk in mid-country.”
▪ “...he could imagine himself upon the centre of a plain, a wintry, windless
Arizona desert with no house in a thousand miles, and only dry river beds,
the streets, for company.”
▪ “But now these highways, too, were like streams in a dry season, all stone
bed and moon radiance.”

▪ “...leaving the empty streets with the empty pavements, and no sound and
no motions all the rest of the chill November night.”
Setting: A society in terminal decline
◦ several recurring details and examples of imagery add to the impression that
the society in which Mr. Mead lives is in decline
▪ “...step over grassy seams...”
▪ “...not unequal to walking in a graveyard...”
▪ “Sudden grey phantoms seemed to manifest upon inner room walls where a


curtain was still undrawn against the night, or there were whisperings and
murmurs where a window in a tomb-like building was still open.”
▪ “He stumbled over a particularly uneven section of pavement. The cement
was vanishing under flowers and grass.”
▪ “...tomb-like houses...where people sat like the dead...
Theme: Dehumanisation of society
◦ as people become more and more dependent upon technology, society
becomes less and less human
▪ “ 'No profession,' said the police car, as if talking to itself.”
▪ “Magazines and books didn’t sell any more. Everything went on in the
tomb-like houses…”
▪ “The tombs, ill-lit by television light, where the people sat like the dead,
the grey or multi-coloured lights touching their faces, but never really
touching them.”
▪ “ 'Your name?' said the police car in a metallic whisper.”
▪ “The light held him fixed, like a museum specimen, needle thrust through
chest.”
Theme: The result of such an inhuman society is loneliness
◦ Mr. Mead's actions, and the situation in which he finds himself, repeatedly
highlight his loneliness
▪ “ 'Hello, in there,' he whispered to every house on every side as he
moved.”
▪ “ ‘Nobody wanted me,’ said Leonard Mead with a smile.”
▪ “He was alone in this world of A.D., 2053 or as good as alone…”