Essay Comparing The Pedestrian And The Flying Machine

The Pedestrian and the Flying Machine are both classics written by Ray Bradbury. Both of these books share Bradbury’s viewpoints on evolving technology. Though they both do it differently. The basic plot for The Pedestrian goes something like this; The year is 2053 a man named Leonard Mead goes for a walk down a street when a police officer encounters him. The police officer sees Leonard’s behavior suspicious and send him back to his house. In The Flying Machine a man creates a machine that can soar the skies. The emperor is not very pleased by it despite his servant being so impressed. The emperor fears somebody will recreate the machine for evil purposes so he destroys the machine and executes the man who created it.

In The Pedestrian the point of view throughout the story is 3rd person limited. It is third person limited because we only see one character’s thoughts. We don’t hear how the police officer thinks or feels we really only hear about Leonard Mead. We hear how Leonard Mead feels about the people staying inside the houses and the police. But we never hear how the police officer feels. We only hear his opinions and feelings

The Pedestrian is third person limited and the Flying Machine is third person objective. Third person limited means you only see one character’s thoughts and feelings as well as what they are thinking. It is different however from first person. First person using words like, “me” and “I” and such while third person limited does not. The Pedestrian is only third person limited because we only see one character’s point of view, Leonard Mead. An example of seeing into Leonard Mead’s thoughts, “Everything went on in the tomblike houses at night now, he thought, continuing his fancy.” I decided to use this quote because it blatantly shows Mead’s thoughts. We however do not see any of the police officer’s thoughts. Making this story third person