The Theme of Technology in "The Veldt" by Ray Bradbury

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The Theme of Technology in "The Veldt" by Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury uses setting, character, conflict, tone, figurative language, and mood in "The Veldt" to explore technology's impact and increasing frustration. The Hadley family is dissatisfied with their relations and happiness due to family disruption. Technology's growing influence surrounds the family, ostensibly making life simpler while robbing them of a critical part of their livelihood: meaning and purpose of life. The parents represent unhappiness from boredom, while their children represent parental absence risks as they look for another guardian figure. Through setting, conflict, tone, symbolic figure, and mood, Bradbury focuses on the poisonous impact on the families and mutual happiness. Families lack human interaction after integrating technology into their once simple lives.
The Tree From Which the Apples Fell
This idea of technology got started in the Hadleys' livelihood with the purchasing of their latest technically inclined "HappyLife House," which "fed and clothed and rocked them to sleep and... was nice to them" to simplify their lives (1). Ray Bradbury has chosen the HappyLife House name as a form of figurative language that implies happiness. Ironically, their home's name is "HappyLife House," that the family invites to help with all household chores. They have no idea that it would have the exact opposite effect. Bradbury also carefully repeats the word "and," lengthening the phrase and mirroring the run-on sentence with the constant features of the HappyLife Home. The reader is overwhelmed by the number of unnecessary qualities in the home, which causes fatigue.
In a discussion between the Hadley guardians, it appears that they are beginning to feel uneasy in their technologically sophisticated home, and they start discussing their feelings of futility. The Hadleys bought the smart house so that they "would not have to do something..." (3). Lydia feels empty now that she does not have any domestic jobs, and she finds that George has been bored to the point of drinking and smoking more than usual. According to Ray Bradbury, George has committed acts of self-harm as a consequence of his idleness. They also became distant from one another. Their mental availability is declining as well as their physical health. While sitting at a machine-prepared dinner table, Lydia and George have an uncomfortable talk with choppy, basic sentence syntax representing the turbulent waters they are wa...