Foundation first: the devices Bradbury uses
Extract questions often ask about the writer's comparisons and atmosphere. Learn these, with the example from this story.
| Device | What it is | In The Pedestrian |
|---|---|---|
| Simile | a comparison using like or as | Mead is as alone as a hawk's shadow; he is held still like a moth by a lamp |
| Comparison of atmosphere | one scene is described as another | walking past the dark houses is like walking through a graveyard |
| Contrast | two opposite things set side by side | dark houses with grey screen-glow against Mead's yellow-lit windows |
| Irony | the opposite of what we expect | the "living" are like the dead; the one living man is treated as ill |
| Symbol | a thing that stands for an idea | the police car stands for a machine-run state; the lit house for life |
How to answer a "compare" question. Name what is compared with what (1 mark), then give two reasons why it suits (2 marks). Graveyard words you can use: tomb, grey phantoms, dead, ghost, silence.
Mood. The story begins calm and almost peaceful, then turns uneasy when the car appears, and ends in cold helplessness. A good answer mentions this change.
1. A November night in A.D. 2053
It is a misty evening in November in the year 2053. Leonard Mead loves nothing more than to go out into the silence of the city, put his feet on the buckled concrete pavement, and walk. He has done this almost every night for ten years, covering thousands of miles — and in all that time he has never met another person walking. (2025 specimen Q5(i): he was a writer; he loved to go out on long walks in the evening, in the silence, along the concrete pavements and grassy patches; the story is set in A.D. 2053.)
2. A city like a graveyard
He stands at a street corner and looks down the long, moonlit avenues in all four directions, choosing which way to go — though it makes no real difference, since he is completely alone in this world of 2053. (2025 specimen Q5 extract, paraphrased.)
The houses he passes are dark, except for the faint, flickering grey light of television screens moving on the walls inside. Walking past them, Mead feels it is like walking through a graveyard: the people inside sit silently like the dead in their tombs, with only ghostly light moving over their faces. He sometimes whispers at the windows, asking what is on the different channels tonight, what show, what comedy, what murder.
The streets themselves are empty. Mead pictures himself as alone as a hawk's shadow gliding over open country, or as alone as someone standing in the middle of a desert plain in Arizona, with no house for a thousand miles — only dry riverbeds and empty streets. (2025 specimen Q5(ii).) The great highways, crowded with cars by day, are silent at night, like dry stream-beds.
3. Sneakers, not hard heels
Mead used to walk in hard-heeled shoes, but their sound on the pavement made dogs bark and lights come on in the houses, and people looked out to see who was there. Wanting to move quietly and unobserved, he changed to sneakers (soft rubber-soled shoes). (2025 specimen Q5(iii).) Even so, he walks with his hands in his pockets, breathing the cold air, enjoying the frost and the smell of the night.
4. The police car
On this particular night, as Mead turns for home, a car comes round the corner and catches him in the beam of its headlights. He stands motionless — spellbound, like a night moth stunned by a lamp — and then is drawn towards it. (2025 specimen Q5(iv).)
It is a police car — the only one left in a city of three million people. Crime has fallen so low that the other police cars are no longer needed. A metallic voice orders Mead to stand still and not move.
5. The interview
The voice fires questions at him, and his answers make less and less sense to it:
| Question | Mead's answer | How the machine reacts |
|---|---|---|
| Name? | Leonard Mead | — |
| Business or profession? | He supposes you could call him a writer. | It records "no profession" — magazines and books no longer sell; nobody reads. |
| What are you doing out? | Walking — just walking, for the air, and to see. | It cannot understand walking with no purpose. |
| Do you have an air conditioner? | Yes. | Then why go out for air? |
| Do you have a viewing screen? | No. | A long, crackling silence: this is very suspicious. |
| Are you married? | No; nobody wanted him. | It orders him not to speak unless spoken to. |
The voice orders him to get into the car. When Mead says he has done nothing wrong, the machine simply repeats the order.
6. The empty car
Mead walks to the car and looks inside. There is no one in it — no driver, no police officer at all. The car is run entirely by machines. The back seat is like a small black cell with bars, smelling of hard steel and antiseptic — clean, cold and inhuman. Mead gets in.
When he asks where he is being taken, the voice tells him: to the Psychiatric Center for Research on Regressive Tendencies. In other words, Mead's love of walking is treated as a mental illness — a sign that he is going backwards ("regressive") instead of living as everyone else does.
7. The lit house
As the car carries him away, they pass a single house in the dark street. Every window is ablaze with bright, warm light — the only lit house in the whole city. It is Mead's own house. "That's my house," he says. The car does not answer. It drives on down the empty, moonlit streets, and the city is left in silence again.
Reading between the lines
- Ten years and no other walker. The writer wants us to feel at once that something is wrong. A city of three million people and not one more person outdoors.
- The graveyard. The people inside are alive but sit silent and still in the dark, lit only by ghostly light. The ironic twist is that the one truly living person, Mead, is the one called sick.
- A hawk's shadow. A shadow is light, silent and unnoticed. The image shows both Mead's freedom and his loneliness.
- Sneakers. In this world even a quiet pleasure has to be hidden. Hard heels woke the dogs and brought faces to the windows, so he softened his steps. He is already a man who must hide.
- Spellbound like a moth. A moth is stunned by a lamp and cannot look away. Mead is caught in the headlights in the same helpless way.
- The only police car. Crime has nearly vanished because nobody goes out. So one machine is enough, and its one catch is a gentle writer.
- "No profession". Nobody reads, so a writer is useless to this society. The machine counts only what is useful to it.
- The empty car and the cell. There is no human to listen, to argue with or to feel sorry. The clean, cold, steel-and-antiseptic back seat is a cell dressed as a hospital.
- "Regressive tendencies". The label turns a harmless habit into a disease. "Regressive" means going backwards. The state calls Mead's walk a step back from progress.
- The lit house. Mead's windows glow with warm light while all others show grey screen-glow. Life shines from the house of the man being taken away, and the car does not even answer him.
Worked examples
Example 1 (MCQ, 1 mark, ICSE 2025, Q1(xiv)). Choose the correct sequence: 1. Stopped by a police car. 2. Forced to enter the car and taken away. 3. Mead loved to walk through the empty streets at night. 4. A metallic voice asked him a series of questions. Options: (a) 2, 1, 3, 4 (b) 1, 3, 4, 2 (c) 3, 1, 4, 2 (d) 4, 1, 2, 3.
Solution. (c). Find the first event (his walks, 3) and the last (taken away, 2). Then 1 must come before 4, because the car must stop him before it can question him. Why this scores: the method of fixing the first and last events saves time in a 1-mark question.
Example 2 (context + inference, 3 marks). Read the paraphrase: Mead once wore hard-heeled shoes, but the sound on the pavement set dogs barking and made lights come on. So he changed to sneakers. Why did he change? What does the change show about his world?
Model answer. His hard heels drew attention: dogs barked, lights came on and people looked out to see who was walking. He wanted to walk quietly and unobserved, so he chose soft rubber sneakers. The change shows that in his world a person who walks outdoors is thought strange, so he feels he must hide.
Why this scores: the cause (1 mark), the effect on the street (1 mark), what it shows about society (1 mark). Many candidates stop after the cause and lose the inference.
Example 3 (device, 3 marks, ICSE 2025 specimen, Q5(ii)). To what does Mead compare himself on his walk? Give two reasons.
Model answer. He compares himself to the shadow of a hawk over open country. First, the roads are as empty as the middle of a plain in the Arizona desert, with no house for a thousand miles. Second, he is the only living person on the street, as a hawk is alone in the open sky. The image therefore suits his complete loneliness.
Why this scores: the comparison named (1 mark), two reasons (2 marks). In the exam, write: "The comparison suits because" followed by a reason from the text, never a bare repetition of the quotation.
Example 4 (full extract, 16 marks). Read the paraphrase: Mead walked to the car and looked in. There was no driver and nobody beside the wheel. The back seat was a little black cell with bars, and it smelled of cold steel and antiseptic. He got in.
(i) What did Mead find when he looked into the car? [3] Answer. The car was empty: there was no driver and no police officer. It was run entirely by machines. This matters because there is no human being to listen to him or feel sorry for him.
(ii) What is the back seat compared to? [3] Answer. To a small black jail cell with bars. It suits because it is narrow, closed and cold, and it is meant to hold a prisoner.
(iii) What does the smell of antiseptic suggest? [3] Answer. Cleanliness without warmth, like a hospital. It points forward to the Psychiatric Center, and it shows that cruelty here is clean, cold and inhuman.
(iv) Where is the car taking Mead, and why? [3] Answer. To the Psychiatric Center for Research on Regressive Tendencies. The machine treats walking without a purpose, being a writer and having no screen as signs of illness.
(v) What does the scene tell us about this society? Give your opinion. [4] Answer. It tells us that the society trusts machines more than people, and that nobody can appeal against them. In my view it is frightening, because a harmless man is punished without a trial or a human voice. It warns us not to hand every decision to machines.
Why this scores: every answer takes its fact from the passage and then explains it. The last answer gives an opinion with a reason.
Example 5 (4 marks, ICSE 2025 specimen, Q5(v)). Would you call this a horror story or science fiction? Give reasons.
Model answer. I would call it science fiction. It is set in the future, in 2053, and it imagines driverless talking police cars and viewing screens in every home. It also shows how technology can change a whole society. However, it has horror in it too: an innocent man is seized by a machine and the city is like a graveyard of the living.
Why this scores: a clear choice (1 mark), two reasons from the text (2 marks), a balanced closing remark (1 mark). The mark scheme accepts either answer if the reasons are sound.
Doubts cleared
Q. Why does the police car not simply let Mead go? It is a machine. It follows its programme. It has no way to understand a man who walks only for pleasure, so it can only follow orders.
Q. Did Mead break a law? The story names no law. He is taken away because his habits do not fit the society's idea of normal, not because of a crime.
Q. Why does Mead say that "nobody wanted" him? He says it with a smile. It is gentle humour and a sad hint that he lives alone in a world where few people reach out to one another.
Q. Why is his house lit when he has no viewing screen? His windows blaze with ordinary electric light, not grey screen-glow. The warm yellow shows a house with life in it, in contrast to the others.
Mistakes to avoid
- Saying the police car has a driver. It has none.
- Treating the Arizona desert as the setting. It is only a comparison for how empty the streets feel.
- Writing "hawk" for "eagle", or "tomb" for "temple". Quote the exact words.
- Retelling the whole story for a "why" question. Give the reason first.
Check yourself
- How many police cars are left in the city?
- What does the word "regressive" suggest about Mead's walking?
- What is the effect of the brightly lit house at the end?
Answers: 1. Only one, in a city of three million. 2. Going backwards: his habit is treated as a step back from the society's idea of progress. 3. It contrasts life and warmth with the dark, dead street, and it makes the ending sadder because the car does not reply.