Ray+Bradbury

 "All Summer in a Day" By: Ray Bradbury Summary: "All Summer in a day" is a short science fiction story about a classroom of kids, the children of the rocket men and women, who live on Venus. In this world they live in, it rains and storms everyday. Every Seven years, the rain stops and peaks out from behind the clouds for two hours. Among these children is a girl names Margot who is different than the other kids. She remembers what the sun looks and feels like. Margot doesn't really talk or interact with the other children. On this specific day, the day the sun was predicted to shine, she kept staring out the window waiting for the rain to stop while the other children were playing around the classroom. While their teacher was gone, the children locked Margot in a closet in their underground school for talking about the sun. When their teacher came back to take them outside, the children forgot about Margot and went out to explore the jungle like terrain and enjoy the sunshine and rain-free weather. That is until it started raining again and they had to go back inside their underground safe haven. The children then, not making eye contact, shamefully walked back to their classroom and let Margot out of the closet.

Correlation:

" And this was the way life was forever on the planet Venus, and this was the schoolroom of the children of the rocket men and women who had come to a raining world to set up civilization and live out their lives." page 1 "... in the echoing tunnels of the underground city." page 2 "All Summer in a Day" is written by Ray Bradbury. Bradbury, often known for writing stories of the future, follows that path again in this short story. The plot of the story takes place on another planet, Venus. Their underground schoolhouse is not only a school, but also their home. This choice of location is both futuristic and creative. It correlates with the future. In fact, the world has already been discussing about people possibly living on Mars. His ideas and thoughts about living on Venus seem pretty realistic.

"... these children... could never remember a time when there wasn't rain and rain and rain." page 1 "But this is the day, the scientists predict, they say, they know, the sun..." (Margot) "All a joke!" (boy) page 2 In the short story, on Venus it rains once every seven years for approximately two hours. The one student, Margot, is the most excited for the sun to shine. She was extremely eager, but her dreams were broken once she was locked into the closet and forgotten about when the other kids ran out to play. The theme of the story is broken dreams. If Margot wasn't locked into the closet, there would hardly be a story to tell.

"They walked slowly down the hall in the sound of the cold rain. They turned through the doorway to the room..., lightening on their faces, blue and terrible." page 4 Once the other kids returned from playing outside, they knew they did wrong. They acted like puppies, as their ears seemed to lay back. It almost seemed like they were preparing for their punishment. Even though this takes place in the future, all children act this way. Some even hold themselves back before they act because they don't want to be yelled out for disobeying. Maybe that's what Bradbury is trying to imply, children characteristics barely change over a long period of time.

Reflection: "All Summer in a Day" is a well written short story with a great plot. Bradbury did a tremendous job by hooking on the reader right from the beginning. The story also had both an interesting story line, and some parts of the story were sad. It takes place in the future and at times it was hard to understand exactly what was taking place, but Bradbury helps with the terrific pictures he draws in the readers mind. He really makes the story come alive and sound possible.