The Pedestrian

Title:
The Pedestrian

Author:
Ray Bradbury

About the Author: (goodreads)
Ray Bradbury, American novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, screenwriter and poet, was born August 22, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois. He graduated from a Los Angeles high school in 1938. Although his formal education ended there, he became a "student of life," selling newspapers on L.A. street corners from 1938 to 1942, spending his nights in the public library and his days at the typewriter. He became a full-time writer in 1943, and contributed numerous short stories to periodicals before publishing a collection of them, Dark Carnival, in 1947.

Summary: (goodreads)
none

I'd Recommend to....
Anyone

My Rating:
4/5

My Thoughts:
Its a dark, cold, November night in the year 2053. Leonard Mead is out for a walk. This is unusual -no, unheard of! No one goes out and walks anymore, they all just sit infront of their televisions, rotting away like a bunch of couch potatoes. Everyone execpt Leonard. Every night for the past 10 years he has gone out for a walk. He doesn't even own a television set!
As he is out, minding his own business, talking to the houses he passes, a robot police car - the only one for 3 MILLION people - stops him. When asked what he is doing, he replies walking, and when asked why, he replies to see and to walk. These answers do not satisfy the police car, and poor Leonard is arrested.
Leonard exemplifies mental courage and the courage to be different. His house is warm and bright while everyone else's is like tombstones, and again, he doesn't own a television set when everyone else does. He would rather be out walking then rotting away. He is a writer when no one reads anymore. In all ten years, he has never seen another person walking. It definately takes courage to be different, and he is definately different. Lady GaGa also chooses to be different, and so did Rosa Parks. Rosa refused to give up her seat, showing courage to be different, since everyone else was following the law.
Some people might think Ray Bradbury is being overly pessimistic about the power of television and technology in the future, but remember, when he wrote this story, tv was the latest thing and all anyone wanted to do was watch it. How was he supposed to know that the buzz of it would fade? After all, he really did get stopped by a police man for talking a walk because it was so out of the ordiany.