The world of childhood in Ray Bradbury’s 'The Illustrated Man'

Abstract

This article is devoted to an analysis of the motif of childhood in The Illustrated Man, a collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury. The particular focus is on the initial story, “The Veldt,” and the last two stories, “Zero Hour” and “The Rocket.” The article interprets imagination as a distinguishing feature of children’s world, as opposed to the world of adults, characterised by logic and lack of imagination. This difference, the article claims, results in a clash of the two worlds. The article also analyses Bradbury’s negative view of technology expressed in the stories, with its addictive and destructive potential, as well as technology’s relationship to imagination. Another object of analysis is the ways Bradbury suggests to reconcile the worlds of children and adults and to avoid technology’s pernicious effects. The article also aims to analyse the way in which the intertextual framework contributes to these themes and to interpret the meaning of the arrangement of the stories within the volume.