Margot in All Summer in a Day Reaction by Ray Bradbury

Imagine a world where it rained, and rained, and rained. A world with no sunlight. A world of darkness. A world of depression and despair. That’s the world of Margot. In the story, All Summer in a Day, the author Ray Bradbury presents us with this fictional world. The nine-year-old students live on the planet Venus, where every day’s filled with downpours. The other students are jealous of Margot because she remembers her time on Earth and the warm sun.  This causes them to be jealous and eventually bully her.  Bradbury uses figurative language, dialogue, and imagery to portray the theme that bullying hurts the bullies as well as the victims.  

Bradbury uses figurative language to display this theme.  After the children locked Margot in the closet, they felt terrible.  “They stood as if someone had driven them, like so many stakes, into the floor.  They looked at each other and then looked away.  They glanced out at the world that was raining now and raining and raining steadily. They could not meet each other’s glances. Their faces were solemn and pale. They looked at their hands and feet, their faces down” (Bradbury 3). 

He then uses dialogue to show how bad the children felt. We can picture how guilty and shocked the kids were in themselves. They had become monsters, and they knew it. Destructively not only hurting Margot but themselves. As if they left a hole in their own hearts. They were growing into people nobody would want to be. At least I don’t think anyone would dream about being a bully. They were hurt in there own actions.

Another way bullies have guilt in their actions is the instant feeling of regret right after. “Margot.”  One of the girls said, “Well...?” No one moved. “Go on,” whispered the girl (Burbary 3). Right here we can see that the bullies not only felt shocked in what they did but confused on what to do next. Hey stood around the dwelling in a pool of guilt staring at eachother waiting for someone to make a move. They were unsure what they should do now after acting like such monsters.

Finally, Bradbury uses imagery to display this theme of bullying.  “They walked slowly down the hall in the sound of the cold rain.  They turned through the doorway to the room in the sound of the storm and thunder, lightning on their faces, blue and terrible.  They walked over to the closet door slowly and stood by it” (Bradbury 4). When the author goes in-depth on every detail you get the sense as if you're going through it with the characters. The feeling as if you're actually standing there in the same room as them. Not only do we feel what these fictional characters go through but we also have their guilt. After a bully doing something as cruel as looking at a person in the closest most of the time, you feel pretty guilty about yourself. However, you can’t just undo your actions. When the bullies locked Margot in the closest she it was because they had their own hurts in life. Whether it was their jealousy because deep down inside of them they knew she actually had seen the sun before, or if it was just because she’s different. Either way, it's normal for a person to feel regret in their own actions… so much so that they continue to dwell in a pool of cruelness because it's the only way they can escape their mistakes. Next thing you know you your drowning in your own guilt because the strength it takes to own up to your actions feels harder than staying where you are. Us readers may never fully know but through listening to Bradbury's words we begin to question and build off the story drawing our own conclusions to the emotions of the characters portrayed through the incredible description. 

Inconclusion, the author Bradbury shows us in the book All Summer in a Day that bullying leaves an impact on the bully as well as the victim. He displays this by showing the regret in their actions after acting so out of their place, and by showing the readers their confusion on how to move forward after bullies Margot. Although bullies may seem mean and rough, they probably are hurting on the inside from their own choices.