Skip to main content

What is the lesson in Ray Bradbury's "All Summer In A Day"?

There can be more than one lesson to learn from any story in literature. More often than not, people apply the messages from stories to their own lives in different ways and based on personal experiences. (This is where themes come from, too.) Bradbury's "All Summer in a Day" is a story that addresses human nature and group mentality. For example, it is human nature to doubt one person's experiences when everyone else in a group has not had that same experience. Margot remembers seeing the sun when she lived on Earth, but children on Venus doubt that she ever saw the sun because they do not have the same experience. Not only do Margot's classmates doubt that she remembers the sun, but William in particular vocally challenges her about it. Either William is jealous that Margot remembers the sun while he doesn't, or he simply doesn't believe that the sun will ever shine. If the second is true, then William's behavior towards Margot might be hostile because he suffers from the strong desire to see the sun, but doubts he ever will. Consequently, William's poor attitude towards Margot infects the other children because they can relate to William more than they can with her. William's disbelief that the sun will shine is expressed in the following:



"'Well, don't' wait around here!' cried the boy savagely. 'You won't see nothing! . . . Nothing!' he cried. 'It was all a joke, wasn't it?' He turned to the other children. 'Nothing's happening today. Is it?'"



Margot humbly protests that the scientists know that the sun will shine. The other children, however, side with William savagely, as though they turn into a mob set against Margot. Once the other children agree with William, they are then easily manipulated to follow his suggestion to put Margot in the closet. It is sad, but people's minds are easily swayed when they are impassioned.


As a result, Margot becomes the victim of the children's prejudice against her, and she misses out on an hour in the sun. Therefore, a few lessons that can be learned from this story. First, it is easy for people to doubt someone's knowledge about something when they haven't experienced it themselves. Next, people like William can become jealous of others who know more or who have different experiences in life than they do. Finally, a group's mentality can be easily swayed when it is manipulated by emotions and pride. Unfortunately for Margot, she represents those who fall victim to the power of a group because she is different. Hopefully, people who read this story won't ever act rashly as part of a group's rage, and they will respect other people's beliefs even if they disagree.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

What warning does Chuchundra issue to Rikki?

Chuchundra, the sniveling, fearful muskrat who creeps around walls because he is too terrified to go into the center of a room, meets Rikki in the middle of the night. He insults Rikki by begging him not to kill him. He then insults him by suggesting that Nag might mistake Chuchundra for Rikki. He says, "Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes."  He issues this warning to Rikki not to help keep Rikki safe but as a way of explaining why Rikki's presence gives him, Chuchundra, more reason to fear.  Chuchundra starts to tell Rikki what Chua the rat told him--but breaks it off when he realizes he might be overheard by Nag. He says, "Nag is everywhere, Rikki-Tikki." Rikki threatens to bite Chuchundra to get him to talk. Even then, Chuchundra won't overtly reveal any information. But he does say, "Can't you hear, Rikki-Tikki?" This is enough of a clue for the clever mongoose. He listens carefully and can just make out the "faintest scratch-s...
Post a Comment
Read more