Ray Bradbury's “The Pedestrian” conveys a story about the terrors of the future and how man will eventually lose his personality. Leonard Mead, a simple man, walks aimlessly at night because it calms him. “For thousands of miles, [Mead] had never met another person walking, not once in all that time,” but on one fateful night, a mechanical police officer sent Leonard away because of his strange behavior ( Bradbury, Ray). This story shows what the future will bring for humanity. During Bradbury's time, from 1920 to 2012, technology began to evolve from very simple mechanics to the very complex systems we know today. Bradbury feared that one day technology would take over and send humanity into a state of anarchy and despair. Bradbury, influenced by society, wrote “The Pedestrian” to warn people about the danger of technology resulting in the loss of personality. As a child, Ray Bradbury loved reading fantasy novels. Inspired by his favorite writers, he longed to become a fantasy writer himself. Bradbury lived during the Great Depression with very little money, so he was unable to attend school. Instead, Bradbury went to the library every other day for ten years. During this time, he realized that he wanted to pursue his dream of becoming a writer. To get money, Bradbury began publishing his works in a newspaper. Because he wanted to practice, he used several pseudonyms to make it appear that different authors were publishing their stories in his newspaper, but in reality it was written entirely by Bradbury himself. “Bradbury uses [his] stories not just to entertain, but to make readers think about their own lives” (Clark, Tracy). He focused more on the message of his story than his popularity. “When you ask… middle of the paper… John) Works Cited Bradbury, Ray. "The Pedestrian" RA Squires, 1951. PDF file. Roberts, Garyn G. "Ray Bradbury: Overview." Young adult writers of the twentieth century. Ed. Laura Standley Berger. Detroit: St. James Press, 1994. Twentieth Century Writers Series. Literary Resource Center. Network. January 26, 2014.Clark, Tracy. "Ray Bradbury: Overview." Contemporary popular writers. Ed. Dave Mote. Detroit: St. James Press, 1997. Literature Resource Center. Network. January 26, 2014. McLaughlin, John J. “Science Fiction Theater.” Nation 200.4 (January 25, 1965): 92-94. Rpt. in Short Stories for Students. Ed. Ira Mark Milne. vol. 20. Detroit: Gale, 2005. Literature Resource Center. Network. January 26, 2014. Smith, Curtis C. “Ray Bradbury: Overview.” Contemporary novelists. Susan Windisch Brown. 6th ed. New York: St. James Press, 1996. Literature Resource Center. Network. January 26. 2014.