Hello! I'm doing a research paper in my junior English class in which I have to compare two short stories by the same author. I loved Fahrenheit 451, so I decided to look up some Bradbury stories. I read "The Pedestrian" and "There Will Come Soft Rains" and chose those to write my paper on.

The only problem is that I need to reference literary criticisms in my paper and I'm having trouble finding some substantial ones, especially for "The Pedestrian". My teacher was very specific: They must be scholarly, not plot summary, and preferably in peer reviewed journals. If someone could point me in the direction of some good literary critcisms- whether in print or on an online database (I have access to Gale, Facts on File, and EBSCO through my school)- that would be wonderful. I plan on writing about the contrast between the "alive" technology and the "dead" humanity. If I can't find good literary criticisms over "The Pedestrian", then I will have to change that story to "The Veldt" which is a great story, but I think "The Pedestrian" better suits what I want to discuss.

Any help is much appreciated! I would love to get some responses tonight, because my thesis statement is due tomorrow, so I would like to know if I need to change my stories and I would like to tailor my argument to the information I find in the literary criticisms.

Hi ValerieS, and welcome to the board. I can't think of any specific scholarly papers on "The Pedestrian", but it is covered in MATCH TO FLAME:THE FICTIONAL PATHS TO FAHRENHEIT 451, in both the introductory essay by Touponce and a textual essay by Eller. You may also find some coverage of it in other books/papers that discuss Fahrenheit 451, since "The Pedestrian" was one of Bradbury's starting points for that novel.

For "Soft Rains", you could look at a paper by Dominianni in ENGLISH JOURNAL: "Ray Bradbury's 2026: a year with current value". If you search for that paper in one of your databases (or Google Scholar) you might be able to find other papers that cite Dominianni (and which, therefore, might be useful to you).

Good luck!

Thanks! I was able to see the first page online and it looks perfect. I can get access to the whole thing when I go to the local community college library on Saturday.

Yeah, there's not much on "The Pedestrian", so I switched to "The Veldt". Anyone have suggestions for literary critisisms on that short story?