I believe that Ray Bradbury made changes in his story, “The Pedestrian” in order to keep the audience entertained and to convey the message of his story more appropriately since it was in a different medium. Firstly, since the “The Pedestrian” was written entirely in third person omniscient from Leonard Mead’s point of view, an exact translation would cause boredom and the audience would find it difficult to stay attentive throughout the television show. For example, the story starts off with the narrator describing the start Leonard Mead’s daily walks. “To enter out into the silence that was the city at eight o’clock of a misty evening in November, to put your feet upon that concrete walk, to step over grassy seams… hands in pockets, through the …show more content…
While in a television show, the audience is only able to see what the character is doing, not what he/she is thinking. Adding Bob to the story, allowed for a conversation between him and Leonard Mead. It was through the dialogue that the audience was able to understand what Leonard Mead was thinking. This allowed the message of the story, which was about the power of technology in the human world, to be conveyed to the audience. Also, in the short story, we only see what Leonard Mead’s perspective of the world is. We are not able to see what the rest of the world is thinking, what their situation is. It is through Bob, that we are able to see that. Bob symbolizes every other person who was sitting in front of their television sets, unable to move. For example, in the television show, when Leonard Mead goes to convince Bob to come with him to take a walk, Bob passionately disagrees while his eyes struggle to leave the screen. This way we are able to glimpse into the world that Leonard Mead so distastefully talks about in the story. In conclusion, Ray Bradbury made changes in his short story for the television show to grasp the audience’s attention and to appropriately enhance his story to convey his message