Yasmine Higgins
Ms. Hampel
Modern Classics
17, Feb, 2017
Ray Bradbury essay
In the stories “The Pedestrian” and “The Flying Machine” Ray Bradbury uses different types of point of view. His short story “The Pedestrian” is about a man who went on a walk in the year 2053, and got arrested for it, because walks were unheard of, everyone only watched TV all day. “The Flying Machine” is about a king who executed a man who invented a flying machine because he thought someone would use it to fly over the great wall of china and destroy his nation. The different points of view in both stories change how the story is told.
“The Pedestrian's” point of view is third person limited, because only the thoughts of Mr. Mead are revealed. Some examples of…show more content… The main character, Leonard Mead’s point of view is that he is just taking a walk to get some fresh air, and everything is normal. The police’s view is that Mr. Mead is acting regressive, and he was crazy for wanting to go on a walk. An example of this is “walking, just walking, walking?” This shows that the police could not believe that he was walking because it was something so unusual.
The character’s point of view in “The Flying Machine” plays an important role in the story also. The inventor’s point of view is that he created an amazing miracle invention. Emperor Yuan’s point of view is that the invention will be used to fly over the Great Wall of China and destroy his nation.
Both the character and narrative point of view in the stories “The Pedestrian” and “The Flying Machine” change how the story is told. In “The pedestrian,” the different character point of views make the conflict greater, and the narrative point of view make Leonard Mead the protagonist. While in “The Flying Machine,” the different character point of views make the conflict greater, and the narrative point of view creates an understanding of both
