The Veldt (short story)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"The Veldt" is a science fiction short story by American author Ray Bradbury. Originally appearing as "The World the Children Made" in the September 23, 1950 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, it was republished under its current name in the 1951 anthology The Illustrated Man.
In the story, a mother and father struggle with their technologically advanced home taking over their role as parents, and their children becoming uncooperative as a result of their lack of discipline.
Plot summary
The Hadley family lives in an automated house called "The Happylife Home", filled with machines that aid them in completing everyday tasks, such as tying their shoes, bathing themselves, or even cooking their food. The two children, Peter and Wendy,{{efn|Their names pay homage to Peter Pan and Wendy Darling.They are also perplexed and confused that the nursery is stuck on an African setting, with lions in the distance, eating a dead figure. There they also find recreations of their personal belongings and hear strangely familiar screams. Wondering why their children are so concerned with this scene of death, they decide to call a psychologist.
The psychologist, David McClean, suggests they turn off the house, move to the country, and learn to be more self-sufficient. The children, reliant on the nursery, beg their parents to let them have one last visit, who give in and allow Peter and Wendy more time in the nursery. When the parents come to fetch them, the children lock George and Lydia into the nursery with the pride of lions. Shortly after, David comes by to look for George and Lydia. He finds the children enjoying lunch in the nursery and sees the lions eating figures in the distance, which are implied to be George and Lydia.
Adaptations
The story was adapted (by Ernest Kinoy) into an episode of the radio program Dimension X in 1951. The same script was used in a 1955 episode of X Minus One, with the addition of a frame story in which it was explained that George and Lydia were not really slain, and that the entire family was now undergoing psychiatric treatment.
"The Veldt" was adapted for the cinema as part of The Illustrated Man (1969).
"The Veldt" was adapted into a stage production by Bradbury and can be found in a volume titled The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit & Other Plays in 1972.
A short film adaptation of "The Veldt" was produced by BFA Educational Media in 1974.
In 1984, Michael McDonough of Brigham Young University produced "The Veldt" as an episode of Bradbury 13, a series of thirteen audio adaptations of famous Ray Bradbury stories, in conjunction with National Public Radio.
The Canadian-produced anthology television series The Ray Bradbury Theater included the story, scripted by Bradbury, as Episode #29 (Season 3, Episode 11). It was first broadcast November 10, 1989, and starred Linda Kelsey, Malcolm Stewart, Shana Alexander, and Thomas Peacocke.
The BBC produced a radio play version in of "The Veldt" in 2007, which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4.
In 1983, Swedish Television premiered a TV movie based on "The Veldt," under the title Savannen ("The Savannah"), with Bibi Andersson in the role of Lydia, and Erland Josephson playing David.
In 1987, a film titled The Veldt was made in the USSR (directed by Nazim Tulyakhojaev), where several of Bradbury's stories were intertwined. It was billed as the "First Soviet Horror Movie."
In 2010, Stephen Colbert read "The Veldt" for the NPR radio program Selected Shorts before a live audience at Symphony Space. In 2012, shortly before author Ray Bradbury's death, Canadian musician deadmau5 produced a song titled "The Veldt", including lyrics by Chris James based upon the story. The music video, released after Bradbury's death, is dedicated to him and shows a young boy and girl wandering through an African veldt and witnessing several plot points from the story, including vultures, and a lion eating an unseen carcass. It is illustrated in a similar fashion to that of the video game Limbo.
See also
- Holodeck, from the Star Trek universe
- Simulated reality
- Simulated reality in fiction
- Smart House, a film loosely based on The Veldt
