20 pages • 40 minutes read
Ray BradburyAll Summer In A Day
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1954A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Roots of Bullying and Ostracism
The central conflict in “All Summer in a Day” concerns Margot’s difference from the other children—the fact that she was born on Earth rather than on Venus and consequently remembers and misses the sun. It’s this difference that Bradbury identifies as the root cause of the other children’s bullying, and when they lock her in the closet, it’s a direct reaction to her obvious desire to see the sun again: “[T]he biggest crime of all was that she had come here only five years ago from Earth, and she remembered the sun and the way the sun was and the sky was, when she was four, in Ohio” (Paragraph 29).
To understand why the children respond to Margot’s difference with such hostility, it’s helpful to consider the work’s setting. Bradbury doesn’t provide many details about the kind of society the colonists have built on Venus, but what he does say suggests that it’s a society that values group cohesion; Margot, for instance, routinely hears the other children making small noises in their sleep, which implies that they all share a dormitory or other communal living space. An emphasis on tight-knit and cooperative community makes sense given the dangerous conditions of life on Venus but could easily slide into intolerance of any difference. Certainly, the children tend to act as a group when attacking Margot, often shouting the same things in unison.
In the deepest sense, however, it isn’t difference that sparks the children’s bullying so much as it is resentment. There’s a subtle implication that Margot’s family is wealthier than most of the people on Venus; although it would set them back financially, they’re considering returning to Earth—a “possible future” that doesn’t seem to be an option for the other children (Paragraph 35). More broadly, Margot’s knowledge of sunlight is a symbolic form of privilege the other children don’t enjoy, and while they can’t know what exactly they’re missing, they sense that Margot’s life is somehow richer or more complete than theirs.
Margot herself contributes to this impression by distancing herself from those around her: “Margot stood apart from them, from these children who could never remember a time when there wasn’t rain and rain and rain” (Paragraph 12). Though inadvertent, this self-isolation serves as a reminder of the life Margot had access to on Earth, and it perhaps also leads the other students to conclude that she sees herself as their superior. Frustrated and jealous, the children become more and more determined to bring Margot down to their level—first by questioning whether she has any kind of unique knowledge at all, and finally by depriving her of sunlight in the same way that they themselves have been deprived of it.
The Danger of Ignorance and the Burden of Knowledge
As humans, we rely heavily on our eyes to learn about the world around us, and our eyes in turn rely heavily on light to function; for this reason, light (including sunlight) is often figuratively associated with knowledge. Bradbury draws on this symbolism in “All Summer in a Day,” but he does so in an unusually literal way. Because of the work’s setting, it is sunlight itself that the children are initially ignorant of; although they’ve learned facts about the sun in school, they don’t have subjective knowledge of (or at least don’t remember) what the sun feels or looks like.
Complex as the other children’s ostracism of Margot is, it’s only possible because of this ignorance. Because they have no firsthand memory of sunlight, the children don’t truly understand what they're doing when they shut Margot in the closet. This becomes clear when they return from playing outside and remember, to their horror, that Margot is still locked up: “They stood as if someone had driven them, like so many stakes, into the floor. […] They could not meet each other’s glances” (Paragraph 82). The shame the children feel at having deprived Margot of what they now recognize as a profound and joyful experience highlights the dangers of acting from a place of limited or absent knowledge.
Knowledge itself isn’t an unqualified good, however. Before experiencing the sun for the first time, the children are excited and curious to see it, but they don’t feel its absence in any meaningful sense. On the contrary, they seem content with the lives they lead on Venus, never having known anything else; they play tag “in the echoing tunnels of the underground city” (Paragraph 28), apparently unbothered by the fact that the planet’s constant storms restrict them to what Bradbury implies is a dark and largely barren environment. Only after spending an hour playing in the sun do the children realize how impoverished their existence actually is; tellingly, one of the first remarks a child makes after venturing outside is that the sun is “better than the sun-lamps” (Paragraph 58). After this experience, however, it’s impossible for them to return to their prior, relatively carefree state; in fact, Bradbury’s description of them as “solemn and pale” recalls Margot’s appearance (Paragraph 82), implying that the other children may become similarly despondent with longing for sunlight.
Humanity’s Dependence on Nature
“All Summer in a Day” imagines a future in which technology and space travel have radically altered humanity’s relationship to the natural world. Colonists have settled on Venus not because of its environment, but rather in spite of it; although similar to Earth in certain respects (e.g. a breathable atmosphere, abundant plant life), Venus is fundamentally inhospitable to human life. Its rains are so torrential that Bradbury even likens daily life on Venus to an ongoing natural disaster: “an avalanche, a tornado, a hurricane, a volcanic eruption” (Paragraph 53). As a result, the colonists have had to effectively cut themselves off from the natural world, living in an underground city and relying on sun-lamps in place of actual sunlight.
These substitutes, however, can’t truly replace contact with nature. As Bradbury depicts it, humanity is inextricably tied to the natural world; in fact, humanity is itself a part of nature, which is why Bradbury so often likens the children to things like weeds, roses, or animals. The experience of growing up alienated from nature therefore stunts the children’s development in a way comparable to a plant that’s been deprived of sunlight, though in the children’s case, the effects Bradbury emphasizes are mainly psychological rather than physical; as their bullying of Margot demonstrates, the children are petty, vindictive, and prone to groupthink.
The harmful impact of the children’s artificial environment only becomes fully clear when the children finally experience sun for the first time. The agitated, mob-like energy the children formerly displayed—Bradbury at one point likens their movements to a “feverish wheel, all tumbling spokes” (Paragraph 23)—gives way to genuine liveliness and moments of deep personal communion with nature: “They ran among the trees, they slipped and fell, they pushed each other, they played hide-and-seek and tag, but most of all they squinted at the sun until tears ran down their faces” (Paragraph 61). Passages like this one suggest that it isn’t merely the children’s newfound awareness of what Margot has been missing that allows them to empathize with her by the story’s conclusion; rather, being in nature inherently reminds them of their connectivity to the world around them and to one another, promoting greater tolerance and compassion.
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