Happy Life House ("The Veldt" Reflection 2)

　As the society develops, we are living much busier days than the past. The developed society brought many advantages to people, but unfortunately, people have less opportunity to communicate with their family. Since there is no communication, it has become much more difficult for the family members to understand each other, and lack of understanding is leading them away from unity, causing many domestic troubles. In Ray Bradbury’s “The Veldt”, the author describes this domestic trouble in allegories, and the readers can realize how serious the problem is through this story.

　In this story, George Hadley is the patriarch of one family. He has an automatic house called “Happy Life House”, and in the house, there is a very special nursery for his children, which offers everything that the children want. However, there have been some strange things about the nursery, “but, being busy, Hadley had it no attention.” (Para. 72) And it’s exactly the same as the aspect of the parents now. Nowadays, parents are very busy, even though the advanced technology has reduced their burden of household chores. They always have so much work to do but no time to play with their children. Since there is no communication between the parents and the children, it gets much more difficult for them to find what’s going wrong. Even when they find the problems, it’s also very hard for the family to fix those, because the family members are not used to talk to each other. Then, the relations between the parents and the children get more variant as days go by.

　However, the domestic trouble is not only the parents’ fault. Children are also responsible for it. Even though their parents are doing wrong, the children should know it is wrong and try to change their attitude. Sadly, most of the children are not realizing it, and are led away by the parents’ wrong behavior. When their parents are busy and have no time to listen to them, the children should control their mind well try not to fall into bad ways, but they don’t. When they don’t try to calm themselves, the children easily get addicted to the things that only can bring more problems, such as computer games, bad friends, or even drugs. Children can never be released from stress by those ways, and the relationship in their family gets worse and worse. Then, there could be really a serious problem such as violence or abscondence happens. In this story, Peter and Wendy value their nursery more than their own parents because the nursery has replaced the parents in the children’s mind. When the parents notice the problem and try to remove the nursery, they can’t stand it and finally kill their own parents using lions in the magic nursery.

　This story is also telling the readers that the gifts that the parents gave to their children can destroy the children, or even the whole family. Instead of trying to understand their children, the parents now are giving their children material gifts, as Mr. Hadley bought the magic nursery for his children, Peter and Wendy. He thinks that he gave his children everything that they wanted and it was all what he had to do. Therefore when the children disobey the father’s order, he gets very angry and says, “We’ve given the children everything they ever wanted. Is this our reward— secrecy, disobedience?”(Para.134). Now, many parents think they are doing well. They think they have to earn money and say that it is all for their children. However, money can’t replace the parents. Even if they offer everything, it’s far less valuable than the parents’ true love. When the children get some present from parents, it can please the children, but only for a short time. Later, the children will not value the little gifts anymore and may consider the gifts that their parents gave to them as if they must be there necessarily. When the parents don’t satisfy the children’s demands, the children may think that the parents don’t love them and become crooked, just as Peter and Wendy did in “the Veldt.”

　A family where the members do not communicate and do not even try to understand each other, it has become the aspect of many families in the world where we are now living in. Nevertheless, as the old saying goes, “blood is thicker than water.” family is the more important thing than any other treasures. Every family member loves each other, and tries to be good to their family. It’s the ideal of family and it has been like this for so long time. No matter how busy we are, we should notice what the priority is and try to keep our precious family. When we try to listen to our families and care about them, our families will be the most comfortable place for us to rest and to shelter against all the stress that press down on us.