The Veldt

The veldt (from Afrikaans for “field”) is open, uncultivated country characteristic of parts of South Africa. It is thinly forested with grass, bushes or shrubs and is home to a variety of wildlife. Tellingly, Bradbury’s title refers not to the real thing (as we might assume before reading the story) but to its imitation in the Hadley nursery. This is a signal that the blurring of reality and fiction will play a major role the story.

The nursery simulates the African veldt in multimedia fashion with startling fidelity, “in colors reproduced to the final pebble and bit of straw” (240). Visitors can smell animals and dust and hear distant antelope and vultures. The veldt represents a place of excitement and adventure for the children, conjuring up the exotic world of Africa, but it is also a wild, frightening and disturbing place with menacing lions and circling vultures, adverting to the presence of death, as well as the smell of blood and a burning sun “like a hot paw” (243).

The veldt represents the primal side of man—a side that is hidden by the trappings of civilization but, once unleashed, can create wild and violent passions. Bradbury portrays this as a dangerous force that can wreak havoc on individuals and society.