How we cite our quotes: (Paragraph)
Quote #1
His wife paused in the middle of the kitchen and watched the stove busy humming to itself, making supper for four. (7)
Bradbury doesn't like to waste time, so by paragraph seven, we see Lydia's problem: she's a wife and she's not making dinner because she has a gadget to do the work. And what's a wife without cooking? (In the 1950s, maybe not much; today, maybe a scientist.)
Quote #2
They walked down the hall of their soundproofed Happylife Home, which had cost them thirty thousand dollars installed, this house which clothed and fed and rocked them to sleep and played and sang and was good to them. (10)
All right already, we get the idea: the house was expensive. Well, the narrator only mentions this cost once (and later, mentions the cost of the nursery), but it does make us think that the problem here might be related to consumerism. Plus, this quote reminds us of Quote #9 under our theme of Dissatisfaction. What if they bought the technology they wanted, rather than the technology that was new and expensive?
Quote #3
"But I thought that's why we bought this house, so we wouldn't have to do anything?" (55)
In this story, technology is all about convenience, right? This is George talking, but notice that later in the story… well, we won't spoil the surprise, just click on over to Quote #6.
Quote #4
Remarkable how the nursery caught the telepathic emanations of the children's minds and created life to fill their every desire. The children thought lions, and there were lions. The children thought zebras, and there were zebras. Sun—sun. Giraffes—giraffes. Death and death. (66)
Like all good virtual reality rooms, the nursery responds to "every desire." Seriously, when will people learn to put safety guards on their virtual reality rooms? Although here's a semi-serious question: what would this story be like if the room had some sort of "child safety lock," like a car door has? Would genius Peter find some way around it?
Quote #5
And although their beds tried very hard, the two adults couldn't be rocked to sleep for another hour. (150)
Check out all the issues Bradbury packs into this one line: a) the beds are almost made into characters in the way that they "tried" to do something; b) they have multiple beds because sex wasn't invented until the 1970s; c) the "adults" are being treated like children or babies—that's who we rock to bed; d) the parents are super nervous. In a word, this quote is dense.
Quote #6
"I don't want to do anything but look and listen and smell; what else is there to do?" (167)
Peter makes the same argument that his dad made in Quote #3: technology is useful because it can make us into fat slobs who don't do anything. (Wall-E anyone?) Except by this time, George is anti-technology, and his son has turned the tables. Bradbury emphasizes this by making Peter say almost exactly the same thing George said, except this time it reads as creepy rather than… not creepy.
Quote #7
"One of the original uses of these nurseries was so that we could study the patterns left on the walls by the child's mind, study at our leisure, and help the child." (195)
David McClean is our walk-on expert and here he is, walk-on experting. It's funny to us that this consumer toy actually started out as a medical tool. So maybe the Hadley family would be okay if the nursery had remained a medical gadget? Maybe it's like a scalpel: useful for a doctor, but not good for a ten-year old.
Quote #8
"You can't do that to the nursery, you can't!'' (223)
Notice that Peter says "to the nursery" rather than "with," which kind of makes the nursery sound like a person. (You do actions with objects, but to people.) Do you think Peter personifies the nursery here? Are we just being nitpicky?
Quote #9
"Why, you'd starve tomorrow if something went wrong in your kitchen. You wouldn't know how to tap an egg." (203)
Dr. McClean tells George that, just like a baby, George would starve if he didn't have something (not someone) taking care of him. Of course, this makes sense because Dr. McClean's doctoral degree is in telling people how they're messed up. Notice that Bradbury uses some regular cooking issue—cooking eggs—rather than something futuristic like rehydrating a pizza.
Quote #10
"We've been contemplating our mechanical, electronic navels for too long. My God, how we need a breath of honest air!" (229)
In "The Veldt," technology is associated with people not doing anything. So, as George argues here, technology is almost the opposite of real life, since real life is about doing things. ("Contemplating your navel" is a phrase only dads use to describe doing nothing.)