What is significant about the following simile, and how does it add to the mood and/or theme of "The Pedestrian"? The light held him fixed,...

This passage is significant because it points directly to what an anachronism the pedestrian has become in his society. Also, this final act adds an even more despairing tone to the narrative, underscoring the theme of depersonalization and alienation of the society in which Leonard Mead lives. 

Again a light holds a person transfixed. Just as almost everyone else in the town sits in dark houses mesmerized by the television sets' programs, Leonard Mead is...

This passage is significant because it points directly to what an anachronism the pedestrian has become in his society. Also, this final act adds an even more despairing tone to the narrative, underscoring the theme of depersonalization and alienation of the society in which Leonard Mead lives. 

Again a light holds a person transfixed. Just as almost everyone else in the town sits in dark houses mesmerized by the television sets' programs, Leonard Mead is held captive by a beam of light, except this situation involves the light from the sole police car of the town. He is held still by its blinding light, much like a deer who is blinded by the headlights of a vehicle at night as he attempts to cross a highway. 

Interrogated by an automated voice, Mead is arrested because he has "no profession" since he has been a writer and no one reads anything anymore. 

Everything went on in the tomblike houses at night now, he thought, continuing his fancy. The tombs, ill-lit by television light, where the people sat like the dead, the gray or multicolored lights touching their faces, but never really touching them.

As the patrol car traverses the streets, Mead sees that his house stands alone as the only one with lights shining from it. But, like the museum specimen, he has been torn from his own environment and trapped into non-existence.