Automated Apathy
The Veldt and There Will Come Soft Rains are set in smart homes, a concept heavily featured across Bradbury’s work. While there are small differences between the two, both homes contain a fully automated kitchen, a talking clock, and most notably a nursery that transforms into a hyperrealistic scenery of the occupant's choice. Though the two short stories describe circumstances that differ largely, they make several similar points.
The Veldt takes place in the fully automated “Happylife Home” belonging to the Hadley family. The family consists of parents George and Lydia and their children Wendy and Peter. As their house completes nearly every task for them, the adult Hadleys are left feeling useless and dissatisfied with their life. On the other hand, they have noticed their children have taken up an unhealthy fixation on the goriest details of an African veldt, which manifests itself within their nursery. George and Lydia begin to have a growing paranoia that the images in the nursery are more than just an illusion. Tragically, their fears become reality when the lions emerge from their virtual reality to devour them; something their children had manifested repeatedly over the past few months.
Though the parents met a rather unfortunate ending, they themselves are somewhat to blame, as they neglected their duties as parents, leaving their children to be raised by their nursery and the other various smart technologies within their home. As they began to limit their children’s interaction with the technology that raised them, Wendy and Peter’s limited relationship with their parents became further estranged. While it is unclear how real lions became of virtual technology, it is assumed that the nursery worked to eliminate George and Lydia, perceiving them as a threat to both the children and itself.
Differently, There Will Come Soft Rains occurs without the presence of any humans, emphasizing the true autonomy of an automated home. Taking place post-nuclear fallout, the images of its former occupants are plastered in soot on the home’s exterior wall. Despite their abrupt demise, the house continues on with its functions, as usual, preparing food and cleaning as though nothing ever happened.
It is unclear how the structure remains intact after all the surrounding buildings have been destroyed by nuclear fallout. It can be assumed to have some correlation to the home’s obsession with self-preservation, to the point of indifference to nature and living things: slamming its shutters the moment a bird lands on the window and ignoring the family’s dog until it passes away, at which time it dissects and discards of its remains using tiny electric mice. Despite the home’s frivolous efforts to remain intact, a fell tree begins a fire in the house, ultimately destroying most of the structure. There is a strong sense of irony in the fact that the home manages to survive man’s deadliest creation, the nuclear bomb; yet is decimated by fire, a natural element.
The two stories take place in similar homes, telling uniquely tragic stories both reflecting the apathy of smart technology through disregard for living things. The technologies described have an eerie accuracy for mid-century literature; accurately describing some of the technology existing within many homes today. While we don't have virtual reality nurseries or stoves that cook food for you, many people have some form of a virtual assistant in the form of a dedicated device like Alexa and Google Home, or Siri on smartphones.
