Alonni Wells
October 29, 2025
ENGL 112L
Prefatory Essay
For my creative project, I chose to adapt Ray Bradbury’s short story “The Veldt.” I picked
this story because it feels very real and meaningful. It’s about a family who lives in a
“Happylife Home” that does everything for them it cooks, cleans, rocks the kids to sleep,
and even tells them stories. At first, that sounds perfect, but Bradbury shows that all this
technology comes with a cost. The parents, George and Lydia Hadley, don’t really have a
purpose anymore. Their kids depend on the house instead of them. What really stood out
to me was how Lydia starts to feel like she’s being replaced. When she says, “The house is
wife and mother now, and nursemaid,” I could tell she was scared and sad. That feeling is
what made me want to retell the story from her point of view.
In Bradbury’s original story, Lydia is one of the first to realize that something’s wrong with
the nursery and the way the house affects their family. But her husband mostly ignores her.
The story is told from George’s perspective, so Lydia’s feelings are kind of brushed aside. I
wanted to focus on her because she’s actually the one who senses the truth before anyone
else. By writing the story through Lydia’s eyes, I could show what it’s like to be a mom who
feels left behind, not just by her children, but by the world around her.
My version of “The Veldt” is told in a series of short slides, kind of like diary entries or
memories. I kept most of the plot the same, but I changed the narration to be first-person
from Lydia’s point of view. This way, the reader can understand her thoughts and emotions
more deeply. I wanted the audience to feel her fear and guilt as she realizes that her kids
love the nursery more than they love her. The slideshow format also helps show the story
visually. Each slide represents a different emotional stage at first, things seem normal, but
as the slides go on, the tone becomes darker and more hopeless. The simple layout lets
Lydia’s words and feelings stand out without too much distraction.
I decided to use this format because it feels personal and modern. The short, poetic lines
match Lydia’s quiet voice and the tension in the story. The slides also work like flashbacks,
showing how her worry slowly turns into terror. I liked that this format could mix visuals
and words, which fits the futuristic theme of “The Veldt.” Bradbury’s story warns us about
how technology can take over our lives, so I thought using a digital platform to retell it
added another layer of meaning.
The biggest change I made was giving Lydia control of the story. This completely changes
how the reader understands the theme. In Bradbury’s version, the story feels like a warning told from a distance kind of cold and serious. But from Lydia’s point of view, it becomes
emotional and personal. She’s not just afraid of the technology; she’s afraid of being
forgotten. When I wrote lines like “The house did everything for us. It left me nothing to do,”
I wanted readers to feel her sadness. It’s not just about machines taking over it’s about
love and purpose disappearing.
This change also affects how people might respond to the story. In the original, readers
might blame the parents for spoiling their kids or depending too much on the house. In my
version, I think readers would sympathize with Lydia instead. You can see how hard she’s
trying to connect with her children and how painful it is when they shut her out. The ending
feels even more tragic because we experience it through her eyes. When she realizes that
the lions are real and that her children have trapped her, it’s not just horror, it’s heartbreak.
She still loves them, even though they’ve chosen the nursery over her.
Doing this project helped me understand “The Veldt” on a deeper level. I realized how
carefully Bradbury chose his characters and narration style. By keeping the story distant
and logical through George’s eyes, he makes the warning about technology seem stronger
and more universal. But when I retold it through Lydia’s eyes, I understood the emotional
side that’s hidden in the original. Lydia represents something very human, the need to feel
needed. When that’s taken away, even by something that’s supposed to make life better, it
destroys people from the inside.
My version also made me notice how much silence is in Bradbury’s story. Lydia’s feelings
are mentioned, but she doesn’t get to express them fully. Giving her a voice made me think
about how many stories push women’s emotions to the background. In my retelling, she’s
the center of everything. The fear of the lions and the house becomes more personal, it’s
about a mother’s loss, not just a science-fiction warning.
Overall, retelling “The Veldt” through Lydia’s perspective showed me how much point of
view can change a story’s meaning. By changing who tells the story, the theme changes
too. Bradbury’s version warns that machines can destroy families; my version warns that
ignoring emotions can destroy them even faster. Both are true, but hearing it from Lydia
makes it hit differently.
Writing this helped me appreciate Bradbury’s work even more. His decision to focus on
George makes the story feel logical and cold, which matches the theme of technology
replacing human warmth. But by writing from Lydia’s side, I saw how much emotion is
buried beneath that coldness. It made me realize that the scariest part of “The Veldt” isn’t
the lions or the technology, it’s how easy it is for people to stop listening to one another.
Lydia saw everything coming, but nobody heard her.