Wednesday, June 10, 2015

In the story "The Veldt" what are three examples of how the family has become emotionally distressed due to over using their new technology.

The technological advancements of the house of Lydia and
George Hadley have relieved them of having to wash clothes, cook, turn on lights, or do
most anything else.  It also has relieved them of their children, who feel no need to be
with them since they have a nursery that creates a veldt complete with smells and heat
and sound and lions. 


(1) However, when Lydia and George
approach, the virtual reality is frightening and they bolt from the crystal
walls:



"I'm
afraid....Did you see?  Did you feel?  It's too
real."


"Now,
Lydia...."


"You've got to tell Wendy and Peter not to read
any more on Africa."



(2) The
children are creating too much danger in this room, the mother feels.  She mentions that
the children are even distressed in a different way:


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"When I punished him a month ago by locking the
nursery for een a few hours--the tantrum he threw!  And Wendy too.  They
live
for the
nursery.



At dinner, Lydia and
George eat alone because the children are at a special plastic carnival across town and
had televised home, telling their parent that they would be late.  As the robotics
provide their meal, George chews "tastelessly on the meat."  He ponders the idea that
the children may be using telepathic death emanations, and is greatly
concerned.


(3) When the children return from the carnival,
George asks them with false joviality about Africa; however, the children say that there
is not African veldtland in the nursery.  When George checks, it is true.  After the
children go to bed, George picks up an old wallet of his and again smells
lion. 



There
were drops of saliva on it, it had been chewed, and there were blood smears on both
sides.



Distressed by the
occurrences, both Lydia and George lie awake in the middle of the night, wondering about
the strange events of the day and the old wallet.  They hear screams and no that Wendy
and Peter have broken into the nursery.  On the next day George tells Peter he is going
to shut the house down.  Peter is very upset, so his father calls his friend David, who
is a psychologist. George asks him if there is any way that the lions can become real,
but David says he does not think so.  But, the two then find a bloody
scarf.


On the advice of the psychologist, George decides to
turn off the house, but Lydia weakens and gives the children more time.  Then, they hear
the children calling them into the nursery.  When they enter, Peter locks them in and
they are attacked by the lions, suddenly realizing the screams they have heard have been
their own.

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