The+Pedestrian+notes

'The Pedestrian' - notes
**These notes should not be seen as exhaustive, and reading them is not a substitute for studying!**
 * DO NOT simply copy sections of these notes and turn them into essay paragraphs - they have been deliberately written in a style which is recognisably NOT that of an S5 or S6 pupil **

**Overview**
Setting: city street at night; 2053; totalitarian, restrictive society; a society in terminal decline

Characters: Mr. Leonard Mead, a writer who 'dearly loves' to walk the streets of the city at night – 'just to walk' ; the police car, which has no human drivers and dismisses Mr. Mead's profession and lifestyle before arresting him

Plot: Mr Mead goes for a walk, and heads off alone into the night. He passes rows of houses, all with the televisions on, and whispers to them as he goes past. As he turns to head for home, a police car appears and interrogates him. Dismissing his professional as non-existent, and regarding his lifestyle to be ‘regressive’, the police car takes Mr Mead away.

Themes:
 * dehumanisation of society through over-dependence on technology
 * the impact of television (or, indeed, any technology) on the lives in individuals
 * the roots and effects of loneliness

Setting: City street at night
Cities are generally imagined to be busy, energetic places, even at night. This expectation is completely contrasted with the reality of the setting in the story, which is portrayed as deserted and, indeed, desolate: ▪ “To enter out into that silence that was the city at eight o'clock of a misty evening in November...” ▪ “...peer down long moonlit avenues of pavement in four directions, deciding which way to go, but it really made no difference...” ▪ “...on his way he would see the cottages and homes with their dark windows, and it was not unequal to walking in a graveyard where only the faintest glimmers of firefly light appeared in flickers behind the windows.” ▪ “The street was silent and long and empty, with only his shadow moving like the shadow of a hawk in mid-country.” <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">▪ “...he could imagine himself upon the centre of a plain, a wintry, windless Arizona desert with no house in a thousand miles, and only dry river beds, the streets, for company.” <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">▪ “But now these highways, too, were like streams in a dry season, all stone bed and moon radiance.” <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">▪ “...leaving the empty streets with the empty pavements, and no sound and no motions all the rest of the chill November night.”

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Setting: A society in terminal decline
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Several recurring details and examples of imagery add to the impression that the society in which Mr. Mead lives is in decline:
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">“...step over grassy seams...”
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">“...not unequal to walking in a graveyard...”
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">“Sudden grey phantoms seemed to manifest upon inner room walls where a curtain was still undrawn against the night, or there were whisperings and murmurs where a window in a tomb-like building was still open.”
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">“He stumbled over a particularly uneven section of pavement. The cement was vanishing under flowers and grass.”
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">“...tomb-like houses...where people sat like the dead..."

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Theme: Dehumanisation of society
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">As people become more and more dependent upon technology, society becomes less and less human:
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">“ 'No profession,' said the police car, as if talking to itself.”
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">“Magazines and books didn’t sell any more. Everything went on in the tomb-like houses…”
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">“The tombs, ill-lit by television light, where the people sat like the dead, the grey or multi-coloured lights touching their faces, but never really touching them.”
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">“ 'Your name?' said the police car in a metallic whisper.”
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">“The light held him fixed, like a museum specimen, needle thrust through chest."

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Theme: The result of such an inhuman society is loneliness
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Mr. Mead's actions, and the situation in which he finds himself, repeatedly highlight his loneliness:
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">“ 'Hello, in there,' he whispered to every house on every side as he moved.”
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">“ ‘Nobody wanted me,’ said Leonard Mead with a smile.”
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">“He was alone in this world of A.D., 2053 or as good as alone…”

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Genre: science fiction
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">This is a notoriously difficult genre to 'pin down', as there is no agreed definition of what makes a piece of work 'science fiction'. There are, however, certain conventions of the genre which are broadly applicable, and certainly come up in 'The Pedestrian':


 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">The use of a futuristic setting
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">"...in this world of A.D., 2053..."
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">The use of advanced science / technology
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">"As he had expected, there was no-one in the front seat, no-one in the car at all."
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">The exploration of alternative societies
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">"In ten years of walking by night or day, for thousands of miles, he had never met another person walking, no one in all that time."

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Perspective / narration
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">The text is clearly written in the third person, but it is also written from the point of view of Mr. Leonard Mead - it is his thoughts and feelings that we are constantly exposed to through the story:
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">"...that was what Mr Leonard Mead most dearly loved to do."
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">"...he could imagine himself upon the centre of a plain..."
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">"...there was only //one// police car left, wasn't that correct?"

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Above are some fairly obvious examples, but in actual fact any section where Leonard Mead's views of the world in which he lives are made clear are relevant in this context. You should, therefore, consider the imagery and metaphors used to describe the houses and their inhabitants, the metaphorical 'dried up river bed', and the emphasis on emptiness in the final paragraph - all of these are **Mr Mead's** opinions and reflect his point of view.

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">The effect of this is to allow us a personal view of what has happened to the world, whilst also distancing us from the human being involved (this, of course, reflects the themes and setting very well). It also provides us with an unrestricted view of the world, providing us with more information with which we can compare Mr Mead's views, and helping us to understand that they are not shared by the rest of the society in which he lives.