Ray Bradbury's 'All Summer In A Day'

It has been raining for seven long, treacherous years without stopping. In the science fiction short story, “All Summer in a Day,” by Ray Bradbury, it has been raining on Venus for seven years. In the short story, Bradbury writes about a child’s life on Venus. Her name is Margot, and she was born on Earth and moved to Venus when she was four years old. In the short story and movie, many similarities and differences were present.

Between the short story and the movie, many similarities were shown. To start, a similarity in both the short story and the movie was that Margot was locked in the closet by her peers to show their dislike for her. This resulted in Margot missing her chance to see the sun for the first time in five years. In the

short story it states, “They surged about her, caught her, and bore her, protesting, and then pleading, and then crying, back into a tunnel, a room, a closet, where they slammed and locked the door.” This is a similarity because both the short story and the movie shows Margot missing her opportunity to see the sun by being locked in a closet. Likewise, another similarity in both the movie and short story, was that the children felt guilty after locking Margot in the closet, therefore taking away the one thing she needed to boost her spirit. Evidently, in the short story it states, “They turned through the doorway to the room in the sound of the storm and thunder, lightning on their faces, blue and terrible.” This excerpt from the short story shows how guilty the children felt knowing they had taken away a valuable privilege from an innocent child. Lastly, the short story and the movie shared common characteristics that made them similar. Furthermore, differences between the short story and the movie were also very obvious.

Even though the short story and the movie contained many similarities, they also contained several differences.

To begin with, a difference between the short story and the movie was that in the short story, the text claimed they were underground. In the movie, it portrayed that they were on ground level. For example, the short story says that the children were underground because there were tunnels that led upward. On the other hand, the movie visually shows the children living on ground level, since the windows looked directly out to the ground. This is a major difference because in the story, it mentioned lightning striking the ground, so if in the movie the building was on the ground, there was a chance it could be struck by lightning. In addition, another difference was the fact that William said locking Margot in the closet was a joke in the movie, while in the short story, William does it intentionally. In the short story, it states that the children intentionally locked Margot in the closet without wanting to let her out, since the children smiled, then ran off to find the teacher. In the movie, William says that he was going to let out Margot after a few minutes, and that locking Margot in the closet was a joke. This is a difference, since in the short story, the attack on Margot was not meant to have been a joke, while in the movie, it was. In conclusion, the short story and the movie had many important differences that are able to be noticed by both the reader and

viewer.

Many similarities and differences were visible in both the short story and the movie. Overall, the similarities and differences between the two made them both unique. Even though the short story and the movie were both intriguing, I preferred the short story over the movie because it allows the reader to see things from their perspective.