The Veldt by Ray Bradbury

George and Lydia Hadley are the anxious and tired parents of two young children called Peter and Wendy. They live in high-tech house called the Happylife Home, where they various machines and gadgets to do their daily biddings as simple as brushing teeth or tying shoelaces. Things go wrong when the father of the house tries to bring an abrupt change to his children’s habits.

Here is my version of the analysis of the story:

• Written in third person limited narrative from George’s point of view.
• The protagonists are George Hadley and his wife, Lydia Hadley.
• I am a bit confused about the antagonists. They may be the children; or the extraordinary mind-controlled machine in the nursery; or it can be the Hadley’s too much affection for their children and making them spoilt. I am guessing, the antagonists are the kids.
• The genre is Science Fiction with some psychological horror undertone.
• No definite situational irony present. The ending was foreshadowed by the father’s actions.
• The rising action starts right from the first line, when Lydia shows concern about her children’s imagination with George.
• The falling action begins when George abruptly switches off all the machines in the whole house in hopes of getting a normal life and for the betterment of his children.
• The climax is when Peter and Wendy lock their parents in the veldt (the part of their imagination that shows the African savannah). The most disturbing part of the whole story is that the two children have hated their parents for a long time and they have killed them in their imagination a lot more times before the ultimate action and they were very chilled about it.
• The denouement of the story is when Dr. McClean, the psychologist comes over to accompany the Hadleys to a vacation and finds out the horrible truth.

Remarks: Overall the story is very grim and the tone of the story was dreadful right from the beginning. The writer does a brilliant job at creating a dark and disturbing atmosphere from the very first line. Even though the ending is expected, it sends a chill up our spine nevertheless, and I believe that is what the author intended to do in the first place.