In The Veldt by Ray Bradbury, many rhetoric devices were used. These rhetoric devices include structure, foreshadowing, and pathos. Bradbury used these techniques to persuade his audience to agree with the point he wanted to make. 

Bradbury believes that excessive technology is very bad and that children growing up with the overdependence of technology will turn out spoiled or even become troubled. Bradbury used the structure of a narrative in his story in order to better persuade his audience of his opinion of technology. This technique is very effective because it allows the audience to know exactly what the characters are saying and feeling. Most of this story is made up of direct quotes from the characters with only a few descriptive sentences in between. The structure in The Veldt allows Bradbury to better persuade his audience because the characters’ feelings help to show Bradbury’s point that technology can be destructive and be harmful to children. This can be seen when he writes, “That sounds dreadful! Would I have to tie my own shoes instead of letting the shoe tier do it? And brush my own teeth and comb my hair and give myself a bath” (6)? When the child of the story says this, it shows the audience just how dependable the children have become on technology and how they would be helpless without it. Other direct quotes like this helps to persuade the audience of Bradbury’s hatred of the abuse of technology. 

Another rhetoric device that Bradbury uses in The Veldt is foreshadowing. Foreshadowing adds an element of mystery to this short story. When the parents in the story hear two screams coming from the nursery, the mother comments, “Those screams- they sound familiar” (6). Bradbury uses the repeated presence of screams in his story to show how the children are slowly become more troubled and even evil acting. It can be inferred that the children are planning to kill their parents. At the end of the story, the audience finds out why the screams sounded familiar to the parents. It was because the screams were those of the parents from when the children were practicing having the lions in the nursery attack them. Further on in the story, the children were angry at their parents for turning off their technology, and the son shouted at his father, “I wish you were dead” (9). This is another example of foreshadowing and again shows how the overuse of technology is ruining the children’s kindness and innocence. Bradbury used foreshadowing to add an element of suspense and further prove his point that technology can lead to destruction and even death. With this technique, he was able to persuade the audience more of his belief. 

Bradbury also used the rhetoric device, pathos, in order to appeal to the audience’s emotions. This device played a large part in persuading the audience that technology was becoming bad for people. This idea was seen when the parents of the story briefly turned off their technologically advanced house that they had depended on for years. Bradbury writes, “The house was full of dead bodies, it seemed. It felt like a mechanical cemetery. So silent. None of the humming hidden energy of machines waiting to function at the tap of a button” (9). The dead bodies description really plays into the audience’s emotions and shows how depressing and worthless the house has become now that the technology was turned off. Bradbury’s point was that technology is being abused and depended on too much. The use of pathos contributed to the persuasion of the audience. 

The Veldt was a short story written by Ray Bradbury who wanted to share his belief that technology lead to ill-behaved children and should not be completely depended on to survive. Bradbury used structure, foreshadowing, and pathos to persuade the audience of his negative belief in technology. These techniques were very effective in this story and appealed to the author’s audience. 
