Bradbury uses vivid sensory detail in this short story to describe the African veldt that the children watch on the viewscreens in their nursery. These details paint the picture of a savage, dehumanized world and create a sense of foreboding that foreshadows the ending.
Bradbury uses unpleasant, harsh imagery to depict the veldt. It is so hot that the landscape is "baked," and the parents smell the "rusty" odor of the animals and the smell of dust like "red paprika" in the hot air. All of this builds up a sense of harshness, and a feeling of foreboding comes in the "shadow" that passes across the harsh sky (the word "shadow" is used twice). These shadows are vultures, and Mr. Hadley describes them as "filthy" animals. What Bradbury shows us is not a pleasant or inviting scene, but one of fear, heat and death.
A sense of fear builds as the lions come closer, a smell of meat dripping from their mouths. The parents actually run away in terror as a lion seems to bound out at them.
Later, the parents hear the roar of lions and screaming that sounds familiar to them from the nursery. It makes them uneasy. When they end up locked in the nursery, with the lions coming at them, we are not surprised at the parents' realization that the screams they have been repeatedly hearing in the nursery are their own. We accept this easily because Bradbury has been building up our sense of fear and foreboding in his descriptions of the brutality of the veldt from the beginning of the story.
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