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The story takes place in two different settings: a Happylife Home sometime in the future and the African veldt of the nursery. The Happylife Home symbolizes human beings in their most technologically advanced and civilized state. In it, people are protected from the outside world; it is soundproof and totally self-sufficient in that the people inside are cut off entirely from nature. But this is exactly the point of the home: to allow people to live without the fear of going hungry, dying of exposure, or being assaulted by predators or enemies. However, Bradbury’s vision of the future is a dystopian one in which prioritizing safety and security has gone too far. The Happylife Home is too protective. It cuts people off from the things that make life enjoyable and creates an environment in which people survive but cannot thrive or be happy. The African veldt of the nursery, on the other hand, represents the exact opposite. It is nature at its most raw, real, and dangerous. There is no sign of human life anywhere, and anyone standing before the veldt is vulnerable to the sensory effects of the wilderness, and ultimately the immediacy of its dangers. On the veldt, laws and moral codes are irrelevant. Thus, the door that separates the two settings from one another represents the thin line between human civilization and human savagery.

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