As Leonard Mead continues to walk through the streets, he is suddenly stopped by a computerised police car. However, his loneliness implies that true human nature is on the brink of extinction as technology has been allowed to eat away at everyone's lives. All these characteristics infer that Mead is the representative of all that is human.
This is contrasted with the other, comatose, inhabitants who, without objection, conform to a society controlled by technology. As there is no-one to care for the city, it is left to rot.read more. Like corpses immured in tombs, the inhabitants are trapped in their homes, with technology replacing the need for them to socially interact. Indeed, the city is compared to a graveyard with "tomb-like buildings" and "grey phantoms" throughout the story. The inhabitants of the city Leonard Mead is travelling in are all metaphorically "dead". The story starts by submerging us into a cold and unwelcoming atmosphere. Bradbury uses Mead to explore this bleak world and in the process he shows us the pitfalls of our blatant consumerism and demand for technology today.
Everywhere people are in a waking coma, their individuality destroyed, due to their addiction to technology. The main character, Leonard Mead, is portrayed as alone in the world whilst technology dominates the lives of all other human beings. How Does Bradbury Explore the Theme of Technology's Threat in the Short Story "The Pedestrian"? Ray Bradbury's "The Pedestrian" is a short story set in a dystopian future.