Response to The Veldt and There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury
I found the stories The Veldt and There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury very interesting because of the way the portrayed technology. In my past experience with literature about future technological societies, usually either the technology has total control over people so that they have no control over it, or people are infatuated by the technology. In the story The Veldt, one thing that stood out to me was the reaction of George and Lydia Hadley when the technology was no longer in their interests. Even though they spent a lot of money on certain technology to ensure their lifestyle, when the technology turned on them it wasn’t the wasted money they were upset about, it was their choice of lifestyle. The technologically busy lifestyle chosen by the Hadley family in fact did not make life easier, but rather crippled their abilities and especially their children’s abilities to complete normal tasks. To add onto this, when the George Hadley tried to encourage his children to complete tasks without technology they became upset because it was too much work not to just sit back and let machines do the work for them. This can relate back to society today, because with technology, a lot of things that we find normal will probably not be in use anymore. For example, do you think that eventually there will be no more pencil and paper work in schools? During the pandemic we have relied so heavily on technology and shown that it is possible to move forward in our society heavily relying on technology. In the story There Will Come Soft Rains, there was no example of how humans reacted to technology like there was in The Veldt, instead this story showed how technology affected humans. While it wasn’t completely clear how the city was destroyed, there were hints of the effects or radiation or a nuclear explosion, which is linked back to technology. Throughout the story, it was described how much technology was integrated into the lives of the people that lived in the city, much like in The Veldt. However, the people in There Will Come Soft Rains may not have been bothered by the presence of technology. One quote that suggests that occupants of the city enjoyed or tolerated technology is: “Until this day, how well the house had kept its peace”. I think this quote is very telling not only of the symbiotic relationship that people and technology might have had in this city, but it also shows how quickly technology can turn on you and have a negative effect.
