On his solitary walks, Mead experiences and enjoys the natural world, which represents the dormant possibilities of life in this repressed society. Since the story takes place in winter, nature is dormant, but nonetheless the chill air makes Mead’s lungs “blaze like a Christmas tree,” showing that nature is invigorating and comforting. Unlike the predictable and alienating manmade landscape, nature is imperfect and surprising. For example, Mead stumbles “over a particularly uneven section of sidewalk…[t]he cement… vanishing under flowers and grass.” Even though the foliage is not currently growing, the sidewalk has cracked and eroded from the repeated growth of plants that cannot be fully subsumbed by the hard urban landscape. Moreover, just as the “skeletal” leaf form that Mead examines will bud in spring, the ghostly other citizens, made lifeless by their conformity, could one day leave their tomb-like homes and come back to life. This dormant potential of nature introduces an element of hope into the otherwise bleak story, suggesting that despite the current success of state power (represented by the robotic police car) at enforcing repression, nature and humanity will inevitably return. However, like the “hidden sea” that Mead walks toward but never sees, the possibility of rebirth remains a distant ideal.
The Natural World Quotes in The Pedestrian
To enter out into that silence that was the city at eight o'clock of a misty evening in November, to put your feet upon that buckling concrete walk, to step over grassy seams and make your way, hands in pockets, through the silences, that was what Mr. Leonard Mead most dearly loved to do.
If he closed his eyes and stood very still, frozen, he could imagine himself upon the center of a plain, a wintry, windless Arizona desert with no house in a thousand miles, and only dry river beds, the streets, for company.
“What are you doing out?”
“Walking,” said Leonard Mead. “Walking!”
“Just walking,” he said simply, but his face felt cold.
“Walking, just walking, walking?” “Yes, sir.”
“Walking where? For what?”
“Walking for air. Walking to see.”
“Your address!”
The car moved down the empty river-bed streets and off away, leaving the empty streets with the empty side-walks, and no sound and no motion all the rest of the chill November night.
The Natural World Symbol Timeline in The Pedestrian
