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  In this essay, I will analyze characters in the short story “The Veldt” by Ray Brabury, published in 1950, and use “A Short Introduction to Five Types of Ethics” handout to determine the ethics that drive each character’s actions. The handout “A Short Introduction to Five Types of Ethics” states that “Deontologists describe two types of ethical duties: perfect duties and imperfect duties. A perfect duty is one that cannot be obeyed partly. It’s all or nothing”. The parents in the story are trying to help their children by attempting to break their attachment to the house.The children in the story don’t want to understand their parents’ reasoning because they are not accustomed to living without the house doing everything for them. The house also has a room called the nursery, which is a virtual reality room that works by displaying the children’s imaginations in the form of an artificial world.The children, Peter and Wendy see the house as a parent that helps them with everything, but the house is following the perfect duties in deontology. The house can be seen as helping the children get rid of their parents by using the nursery jungle lions to kill them at the end of the story. Bradbury wrote Peter talking to the house asking it not to let his parents turn it and the nursery off, then in the next scene “ The lions on three sides of them, in the yellow veldt grass, padding through the dry straw, rumbling and roaring in their throats. The lions. Mr. Hadley looked at his wife and they turned and looked back at the beasts edging slowly forward crouching , tails stiff. Mr. and Mrs. Hadley screamed(12). The house was programmed to complete specific tasks that will allow the family to do nothing for themselves if that is their choice.While the character’s actions appear to be based on wanting to help other characters, the actions shown are actually driven by a specific ethics that they follow throughout the story. A few scenes in the book will be chosen to prove that some of the main characters act to help other characters in the story.Specific scenes in which important events occur will be selected to show that the main characters’ decisions and actions are based on them following certain ethics.
After the introduction I will explore the ethical decisions made by characters George Hadley and David Mcclean.George Hadley and the psychologist David Mcclean stood in the nursery analyzing it after George told his children to leave with the mental combination they created unchanged. George wanted the psychologist’s opinion on his children’s mental health and if the nursery is bad for them. He wanted to help his children by understanding the reasons for their actions and the way he could be of service. The author Ray Bradbury wrote the character David Mcclean telling George “My advice to you is to have the whole damn room torn down and your children brought to me every day during the next year for treatment”(10). George’s action was motivated by his desire to help his children in a way that won’t make them worse. The scene also shows the psychologist helping George with his problem by examining the nursery, so he could give him advice based on the state of his children’s mental combination. George’s decision to help his children by talking to David about the violent fantasies they keep creating in the nursery is based on him following virtue ethics. In “A Short Introduction to Five Types of Ethics” virtue ethics is defined as having three strands and one of the strands, which is the ethics of care states that “the feminine traits of caring and nurturing are as important as justice and autonomy”. George is caring for his children by studying their mental health, so he could help them. David Mcclean’s actions were derived by following deontology ethics. The information in “A Short Introduction to Five Types of Ethics” explains that “ Any system that involves a clear set of rules is a form of deontology”. David is a psychologist and his career requires him to analyze a patient’s mind before giving a diagnosis to the parents, which he does in the scene with George.
In the next paragraph I will focus on the children Peter and Wendy. Peter and Wendy helped the house because it does everything for them.Utilitarian ethics is defined by “A Short Introduction to Five Types of Ethics” as being “the view that the morally right action is the action that produces the most good”. Peter and Wendy don’t want to do things for themselves, and that is why they fought to save the house. When George first mentions to Peter that he is going to shut down the house Peter said to his father “That sounds dreadful! Would I have to tie my own shoes instead of letting the shoe tier do it? And brush my teeth and comb my hair and give myself a bath?”(9). The children’s desire is based on their belief that the house staying on will benefit them the most.
The final paragraph is about Lydia Hadley. The story starts off showing that Lydia has been paying attention to her children’s imaginations in the nursery. Lydia is the one that shows George how dangerous the veldt has become and convinces him to call a psychologist, so he could look at the veldt. Bradbury starts the short story by writing “George, I wish you’d look at the nursery. What’s wrong with it? I don’t know. Well, then. I just want you to look at it, is all, or call a psychologist in to look at it”(1).Lydia has been focused on helping her children since the beginning of the story.Lydia follows two ethics in the story, feminist and utilitarian ethics. The ethics handout “A Short Introduction to Five Types of Ethics” breaks down the traditional ethics in feminist ethics. The second traditional ethics is defined as “ the realm in which women do housework and take care of children, the infirm, and the elderly”. Lydia wants to help her children because it’s her responsibility as their mother to take care of them. Lydia also follows Utilitarian ethics because she hates that the house is being a wife and mother, so she wants it to be shut down. The house being shut down benefits her because it will allow her to be a mother again to her children.
