The Pedestrian: A Fantasy in One Act

Ray Bradbury was born on August 22, 1920, in Waukegan, Illinois. As a child, he was enchanted by a speculative exhibit on what cities might look like in the future at the Chicago World’s Fair (“Timeline of Bradbury’s Life | Ray Bradbury Center.” Ray Bradbury Center | School of Liberal Arts Centers, 27 May 2022). Fans, scholars, and biographers have connected this early experience to Bradbury’s work in speculative fiction. Bradbury’s stories and novels are often set in imagined futures, a narrative strategy that allowed Bradbury to interrogate current social norms as well as nascent cultural developments.

Known for his imaginative, poetic style, Bradbury wrote more than 300 books and 600 short stories as well as poetry and screenplays. His writing has a psychological bent and many of his stories are cautionary tales whose themes include social criticism, anti-censorship, and the importance of individual freedom. These themes are present in “The Pedestrian,” which describes the danger of nonconformity in a technocratic future.

Best known for the dystopian Fahrenheit 451 (1953), The Illustrated Man (1951), and The Martian Chronicles (1950), Bradbury is credited with giving increased literary status to the

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