Alicia Rajcoomar
Final Essay, ENG 2001
December 3, 2020
For the Children
As members of society, we all follow a set of ethics that essentially govern our behaviors. We use these ethics to determine what is “good” and what is “bad”. Ethics can fall into 5 categories: Deontology ethics, Virtue ethics, Utilitarian ethics, Feminist ethics and Global ethics. Simply, deontology ethics are following a set of rules and using those rules to make your choices. Virtue ethics are based off the type of person you want to be. Utilitarian ethics is the theory that the right action produces the most good. Feminist ethics are ethics that value non-masculine traits. Lastly, global ethics are about fairness and equality for all. These ethics aren’t just present in our real lives, but also the lives of fictional characters in stories. In “The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury, we encounter characters that make interesting and extreme decisions that begs the question, “What set of ethics does each character follow?” In order to answer this question, first I am going to summarize “The Veldt” and discuss the genre because I believe it is significant to the character’s lives. Then I am going to analyze the characters that make important decisions in some of the most important scenes of the story and finally I am going to select the ethics the characters seem to follow in each scene. At the end, I am going to summarize every important point mentioned in this essay and discuss how ethics control our lives.
“The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury is a form of modernist literature, meaning that it rejects the 19th-century traditions. According to the Oxford definition of modernism, “Modernist writers tended to see themselves as an avantgarde disengaged from bourgeois values and disturbed their readers by adopting complex and difficult new forms and styles.” So even though “The Veldt” is a form of modernist literature it still aims to disturb their readers by using unique techniques much like Gothic literature. This is significant to the character’s lives because the characters live a dark life and the parents of the story meet a dark demise, set up for them by their own children. In “The Veldt” parents, George and Lydia live in a house that is powered to do everything for them. Their children, Wendy and Peter specifically love the nursery of the house because they can turn the room into whatever they imagine. George and Lydia’s decisions are always made based off what their children want, until they’ve had enough of feeling useless and want the whole family to go on a little vacation, so they make the decision to turn the power to the house and nursery off. The children become furious because of this and demand that the power be turned back on. George and Lydia give in to their children and restore the power to the nursery. The children lure their parents into the nursery where they are then eaten alive by lions and killed.
From this short summary we can identify a few main decisions that were made, that prove to be significant. One decision would be that of George and Lydia deciding to give their children whatever they want because this behavior makes the children believe that they can do whatever they wish to do. Another decision would be Wendy and Peter’s decision to imagine the Veldt scene in the first place because this shows that they already had something in place for their parents just in case they didn’t get what they wanted. The major decision would have to be George and Lydia turning the power to the nursery off because it prompted the children to lure them to their death. The last decision would be, Wendy and Peter luring their parents into the nursery because it resulted in their parent’s death. All these decisions are made in the most important scenes of “The Veldt” but what kind of ethics do the characters follow in order to make them?
To answer this question, I am going to start by analyzing George and Lydia’s first decision. In the very beginning of “The Veldt” the narrator tells us what kind of parents, George and Lydia are. “They stood on the thatched floor of the nursery. It was forty feet across by forty feet long and thirty feet high; it had cost half again as much as the rest of the house. But nothing’s too good for our children, George had said.” (Bradbury, 2) From this quote we see that George and Lydia are willing to do anything to make their children happy, this includes having an expensive, grand and high-tech nursery that brings the children’s thoughts to life. Another example of George and Lydia’s parenting is shown on page 5, “At dinner they (George and Lydia) ate alone, for Wendy and Peter were at a special plastic carnival across town and bad televised home to say they’d be late.” (Bradbury, 5) The age of the children is never revealed but George and Lydia allow them to be out late on their own doing what they please. These decisions that they make are for their children and appears to be following the Utilitarianism ethics. This ethic states that one should maximize the overall good for others as well as yourself. It also states that it rejects moral codes that consist of commands. A lot of parents discipline their children (moral code that consist of commands) and avoid giving them whatever they want so that they don’t become spoiled. George and Lydia reject this moral code and instead gives their children everything they want to make them happy. While they make decisions for their children, Wendy and Peter make decisions for themselves and are willing to defend this ability by any means possible.
The next decision I want to analyze is Wendy and Peter creating the scene of the Veldt even before their parents turn off the power to the nursery. At the beginning of the story Lydia tells George to come and see the scene that the children had created because she found it disturbing and scary. “The walls began to purr and recede into crystalline distance, it seemed, and presently an African veldt appeared.” (Bradbury, 2) This is the parents first encounter with the veldt, they visit it while Wendy and Peter are at the carnival. It appears, they wanted their parents to discover it while they weren’t at home because when their parents asked about it, they lied and changed the scene of the nursery. “I don’t remember any Africa, said Peter to Wendy. Do you? No.” (Bradbury, 6) Peter then tells Wendy to run and check and when she returns, she says it’s not Africa. When George and Lydia go to inspect the nursery they see, “a green lovely forest, a lovely river, a purple mountain…” (Bradbury, 7) The children lie and play mind games with their parents in order to convince them that they hadn’t seen the veldt scene in the nursery. This behavior follows virtue ethics because it is self-centered, and Wendy and Peter only care to make decisions for themselves. As the story progresses George and Lydia begin to make decisions following virtue ethics because they realize that they need to start making decisions for themselves in order to be happy.
Initially, Lydia admits that she feels useless because their house does everything for them, and she feels like it’s more of a wife and mother than she is. Later on, in the story George begins to feel this way as well and they decide to turn the power to the house and nursery off and take a family vacation. “Matter of fact, we’re thinking of turning the whole house off for about a month. Live sort of a carefree one-for-all existence.” (Bradbury, 9) This decision follows the virtue ethic because even though George is making the decision for his family, he doesn’t take what the children want into consideration and this aspect of it is self-centered. This is the moment that solidifies the children’s plan for their parents because Peter warns George not to consider turning the power off to the nursery and when George says he won’t be threatened by his son, Peter says “Very well” and strolls of to the nursery. (Bradbury, 9) The children already decide their parent’s faith and continue to follow virtue ethics to murder their parents.
This last decision of the story by Wendy and Peter prove that they are self-centered and are willing to do whatever it takes to protect their own happiness without really thinking about what they’re doing and the consequences their actions will have. Wendy and Peter are well aware that they have their parents wrapped around their fingers, so they use this to lure their parents into the nursery. “Just then they heard the children calling, Daddy, Mommy, come quick-quick… They ran into the nursery. The veldtland was empty save for the lions waiting, looking at them… The door slammed.” (Bradbury, 12) After making their final decision for their children, George and Lydia meet their demise as they are torn apart by lions. “Mr. and Mrs. Hadley screamed. And suddenly they realized why those other screams bad sounded familiar.” (Bradbury, 13) After their parents are murdered by the lions, Wendy and Peter sit down together to share a cup of tea, unaffected at what they had just done. They were so blinded by wanting to be children who could do whatever they want and have whatever they want that they murdered their parents for trying to get in the way of that.
In conclusion, all the decisions made by each character played a role in what the other characters were going to do next and as we saw, it ultimately led to the death of George and Lydia. They cared and loved their children so much that they reject the moral code that consist of commands and gives their children everything they want. They realize too late that their children are spoiled and out of control but in an attempt to save their family they turn to being self-centered and don’t take what their children want into consideration. In the end we see that Wendy and Peter have always been following virtue ethics in order to make their decisions and from the beginning they were ready to get rid of their parents if they got in the way of them getting what they wanted, which was the nursery. When they were threatened by their parents, they decided it was time to get rid of them and used their parents love and care to their advantage. George and Lydia’s want for their children to be well and happy drove them to their death because they fell for the trap Wendy and Peter set for them. “The Veldt” shows us that ethics can control our lives. For example, when someone feels their ability to do what they want is at risk they will do whatever is necessary to defend it, some would even go as far as Wendy and Peter did and kill out of being self-centered.
Work Cited
Bradbury, R. (1950). The Veldt. https://repositorio.ufsc.br/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/163728/The%20Veldt%20-%20Ray%20Bradbury.pdf
Oxford University, P. (2008). Modernism. https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199208272.001.0001/acref-9780199208272-e-737?rskey=zxk3Q6
Scanlan, S. (2020). A short introduction to five types of ethics. https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/profscanlan-english2001-fiction-f2020/files/2020/11/Five-types-of-Ethics-fall-2020.docx
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