Question

Read the following extract from Ray Bradbury’s short story, ‘The Pedestrian’, and answer the questions that follow:

‘Sometimes he (Mead) would walk for hours and miles and return only at midnight to his house. And on his way he would see the cottages and homes with their dark windows, and it was not unequal to walking through aа graveyard where only the faintest glimmers of firefly light appeared in flickers behind the windows.’

1. In which year is Bradbury’s story set?  [3]
   What did Leonard Mead ‘most dearly love to do’?
2. In the given extract, what does Bradbury compare Mead’s experience of walking through the city late at night to?  [3]
   List two reasons why you would consider the comparison suitable.
3. Which three responses from Mead are viewed with suspicion by the police car?  [3]
4. Where is Mead taken to at the end of the story?  [3]
   What observation does the author make about Mead’s house as the police car drives through the street?
5. Mention two dangers that the author is warning us against, through this story.  [4]
   Suggest an alternative title for the story. Give one reason for your choice.

Answer 1

(i) The story is set in the year 2053.

Leonard Mead most dearly loved walking alone through the city streets at night.

(ii) Bradbury compares Mead’s experience to walking through a graveyard. 

Two reasons are:

• The houses are silent and dark, like graves in a cemetery.
• The people inside are inactive and lifeless, sitting in front of television screens, which makes the city seem dead and deserted.

(iii) The police car finds Mead suspicious because:

• He says he is a writer, which the police consider the same as having no profession.
• He says he is just walking, something no one does anymore.
• He says he has no television at home.

(iv) Mead is taken to the Psychiatric Centre for Research on Regressive Tendencies.

The author notes that Mead’s house is the only one with lights on, while all the other houses are dark because people are inside watching television.

(v) The following are the two dangers that the author is warning us:

• Overdependence on technology, especially television, which isolates people from real life.
• Loss of individuality and freedom in a society where unusual behaviour is treated as abnormal.

Alternative title: The Lonely Walker

Reason: The title highlights how Leonard Mead is the only person who walks outside and thinks independently in a society controlled by technology.