Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) was one of the best-known American writers of science fiction and fantasy. His works include The Martian Chronicles (1950), The Illustrated Man (1951) and the novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953), about a future society in which books are burned. Fahrenheit 451 grew partly out of the ideas in The Pedestrian. Bradbury himself loved walking at night, and he said the story came from an experience in which a police car stopped him and asked what he was doing on foot. He used science fiction not mainly to predict machines, but to warn about what technology could do to human beings.
Foundation first: the author and the genre in an answer
An answer about the author should do two things: name the writer and his kind of writing, then link them to the story. For Bradbury the link is science fiction used as a warning. His stories rarely explain machines in detail. They show what machines do to people.
Worked examples
Example 1 (short answer, 2 marks). Who wrote The Pedestrian? What kind of writer was he?
Model answer. The Pedestrian was written by the American writer Ray Bradbury (1920-2012). He was one of the best-known writers of science fiction and fantasy, and his novel Fahrenheit 451 is about a society that burns books.
Why this scores: name and country (1 mark), kind of writer with one work as proof (1 mark).
Example 2 (short answer, 3 marks). How did Bradbury's own life help him write this story?
Model answer. Bradbury loved walking at night. He said that a police car once stopped him and asked what he was doing on foot. That strange question gave him the idea of a future city in which walking itself looks suspicious. He turned one small, real incident into a warning about a society run by machines.
Why this scores: the habit (1 mark), the police-car incident (1 mark), how it became the story (1 mark).
Example 3 (MCQ, 1 mark). Which novel of Bradbury grew partly out of the ideas in The Pedestrian? (a) The Martian Chronicles (b) The Illustrated Man (c) Fahrenheit 451 (d) Tartarin of Tarascon.
Solution. (c). Fahrenheit 451 (1953) imagines a future in which books are burned, an idea close to a world where nobody reads. Option (d) is by Daudet, the author of another prose piece in your book.
Doubts cleared
Q. Was Bradbury trying to predict the future? No. He said science fiction was not mainly about machines. He used it to warn about what people might become.
Q. Do I need to know all his books? No. For the paper, know his name, his country, his genre and one or two titles, such as Fahrenheit 451.
Q. Is Bradbury British or American? American. Writing "British" is a common slip.
Mistakes to avoid
- Mixing up Bradbury with the other prose authors in the book (Sleator, Aidoo, Daudet). Match the writer to the story.
- Writing that Bradbury predicted television. Television already existed; he imagined its effect on people.
Check yourself
- Which genre is Bradbury known for?
- What event gave him the idea of the story?
- Name one other work by him.
Answers: 1. Science fiction (and fantasy). 2. A police car stopping him for walking at night. 3. Fahrenheit 451 (or The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man).