The walls by Keith Laumer
"The Walls" by Keith Laumer is a dystopian short story published in the early 1960s. This speculative fiction piece revolves around the concepts of isolation and the effects of technology on human relationships. The narrative focuses on the life of a couple living in a society where reality is mediated through advanced technology, represented by the installation of "Full-walls" that replace traditional television screens with immersive environments. The story centers on Flora,who gradually realizes that her life is becoming increasingly confined and artificial due to her husband Harry's enthusiasm for their high-tech home. While Harry believes that the Full-walls and their advancements enhance their lives, Flora feels trapped and yearns for genuine experiences and connection with the outside world. As Harry installs more and more Full-walls, Flora's sense of reality diminishes, leading to a profound sense of loneliness and despair as she discovers that she has become just another reflection in a life lived through screens. Ultimately, the story culminates in a tragic realization of her isolation within the walls that were meant to expand their world but instead serve to enclose her in a prison of her own making. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Read now or download (free!)
| Choose how to read this book | Url | Size | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Read online (web) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/72410.html.images | 55 kB | ||||
| EPUB3 (E-readers incl. Send-to-Kindle) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/72410.epub3.images | 301 kB | ||||
| EPUB (older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/72410.epub.images | 300 kB | ||||
| EPUB (no images, older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/72410.epub.noimages | 237 kB | ||||
| Kindle | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/72410.kf8.images | 1.0 MB | ||||
| older Kindles | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/72410.kindle.images | 1.0 MB | ||||
| Plain Text UTF-8 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/72410.txt.utf-8 | 48 kB | ||||
| Download HTML (zip) | https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/72410/pg72410-h.zip | 1.9 MB | ||||
| There may bemore files related to this item. | ||||||
Similar Books
About this eBook
| Author | Laumer, Keith, 1925-1993 |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Schelling, George, 1938- |
| Title | The walls |
| Original Publication | New York, NY: Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, 1962. |
| Note | Reading ease score: 85.2 (6th grade). Easy to read. |
| Credits | Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature |
| Subject | Science fiction |
| Subject | Short stories |
| Subject | Spouses -- Fiction |
| Subject | Television -- Fiction |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 72410 |
| Release Date | Dec 14, 2023 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 130 downloads in the last 30 days. |
| Project Gutenberg eBooks are always free! | |
