How we cite our quotes: (Paragraph)
Quote #1
The walls were blank and two-dimensional. Now, as George and Lydia Hadley stood in the center of the room, the walls began to purr and recede into crystalline distance, it seemed, and presently an African veldt appeared, in three dimensions, on all sides, in color reproduced to the final pebble and bit of straw. (13)
That first sentence is real short and easy. But notice that the second sentence becomes complex and long when Bradbury starts describing the weirdness (and realness) of virtual reality. Too bad poor Ray didn't have the phrase " virtual reality" to describe this.
Quote #2
Now the hidden odorophonics were beginning to blow a wind of odor at the two people in the middle of the baked veldtland. (17)
"Odorophonics" is one of Bradbury's made-up phrases, like "mental tape" (37). Another science fiction author would've spent a lot of time talking about how the nursery works. But Bradbury mostly pays attention to the different versions of reality, not the tech behind it. Also, judging by the number of times the word "odor" appears here, he really wants us to smell this place. You might have a nightmare about the veldt, but from this story we get the idea that Bradbury probably has nightmares about colds and stuffed-up noses.
Quote #3
Oh, occasionally they frightened you with their clinical accuracy, they startled you, gave you a twinge, but most of the time what fun for everyone, not only your own son and daughter, but for yourself when you felt like a quick jaunt to a foreign land, a quick change of scenery. Well, here it was! (28)
See? The nursery is fun for the whole family! And so affordable! It almost sounds like this story wants us to buy one, like the narrator will tell us what free shammies he'll throw in. But here's a serious question: if this is fun for the whole family, why do only the kids use this room to get to a new reality? Why can't the parents go on vacation to Boca Raton?
Quote #4
And here were the lions now, fifteen feet away, so real, so feverishly and startlingly real that you could feel the prickling fur on your hand, and your mouth was stuffed with the dusty upholstery smell of their heated pelts, and the yellow of them was in your eyes like the yellow of an exquisite French tapestry, the yellows of lions and summer grass, and the sound of the matted lion lungs exhaling on the silent noontide, and the smell of meat from the panting, dripping mouths. (29)
Check out how Bradbury slips us into the scene here. This may be George's point of view—he's the one who sees that the lions are "here"—but Bradbury wants to make us really feel the scene, too. Do you ever get the impression that Bradbury wants a virtual reality room for himself? Who can blame him, since it's fun for the whole family? Just don't let the parents anywhere near it.
Quote #5
Instinctively, George sprang after her. (33)
Bradbury reminds us that George's reaction to the lions is just "instinct" here since, if he stopped to think about it, he wouldn't run from them. But that would be a very short story: George meets lions, doesn't think they're real, and gets eaten by them. Maybe George's problem is that he should trust his instincts more.
Quote #6
He stepped into Africa. How many times in the last year had he opened this door and found Wonderland, Alice, the Mock Turtle, or Aladdin and his Magical Lamp, or Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz, or Dr. Doolittle, or the cow jumping over a very real-appearing moon… (72)
We cover all these references in the "Shout-Outs" and it's funny how outdated they all are. Even in 1950, these were older books. Maybe Bradbury chose these so his adult readers would get the references, since they read the children's books in the 1920s? If you were to rewrite the story today, what world would kids want to go to? The Hunger Games? Twilight? Harry Potter?
Quote #7
It was all right to exercise one's mind with gymnastic fantasies, but when the lively child mind settled on one pattern... ? (72)
According to George (and David McClean), the problem is not just that the kids have this fantasy, but that it's the same fantasy. Over and over and over again. That's funny to us because all we hear today is how kids can't concentrate, which seems like the opposite problem to the one Bradbury is talking about. And also… oh, shiny.
Quote #8
He knew the principle of the room exactly. You sent out your thoughts. Whatever you thought would appear. (76)
Of course this quote turns out to be wrong since George can't get the room to work for him. And that's too bad because it means we don't get to see what George and Lydia are really thinking. (Do you think they're thinking the same things?) Maybe this room would help George figure out his dissatisfaction, if it were working correctly. But frankly, we worry that George and Lydia might get divorced if they saw what the other was really thinking.
Quote #9
"My dear George, a psychologist never saw a fact in his life. He only hears about feelings; vague things." (193)
Even though the nursery is just supposed to be make-believe, what's real in this story is how people feel: parents are dissatisfied, kids are murderously angry. (See our theme of "Dissatisfaction." And oh, how we wish we had "murderously angry" as a theme here.) In other words, feelings are serious, whether or not we have virtual lions to act on them for us.
Quote #10
"The lions look real, don't they?" said George Hadley. I don't suppose there's any way—"
"What?"
"—that they could become real?" (209-211)
Here George echoes the worry that Lydia started out with (60), which is about how real this virtual reality actually is. (Hint: it's really real.) What's tragic here is that Lydia and George both worry about the fake lions rather than the real feelings of their children. It's also tragic that they don't use this nursery to travel to Paris or something. Seriously, if you have a virtual reality room you should have a little fun before you get eaten.