The Pedestrian

Theme
“The Pedestrian” talks mainly about the relationship between technology
and future, and prejudice. Ray Bradbury thinks in a future where people are
lazy because of technology – specifically the television. The main character,
Leonard Mead, is partially the author himself being the only human in a
neighborhood to walk at night. Until the day the robotic police car stops him,
and can’t understand why someone would be walking at night. Leonard
doesn’t have a TV, he’s walking in the streets, he’s being different, and so
he’s a threat to that way of life. He’s misjudged by a computer and sent to a
Psychiatric Hospital.
Ray Bradbury wants his readers to comprehend that technology is, at
some point, dangerous to us, being a kind of brainwasher that will change
our perspectives of right and wrong.