Comparing The Other Foot And All Summer In A Day

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Ray Bradbury is a science fiction author who is incredible at connecting his stories. His characters are all very similar, most of them with unlikeable traits and many character flaws. But if people dig beneath the surface, they realize how complex each character actually is. All Summer in a Day is about a colony on Venus, where it is always raining. After 7 years, the sun comes out. Margot, the main character, remembers the sun from her childhood on Earth, and is tormented because of that. In The Other Foot, it is about a colony on Mars, where a white man in coming for the first time in 20 years. The man is faced with hatred and anger when he arrives. There are many comparable characters in each story, such as Margot and Hattie, due to their …show more content…

In All Summer in a Day, William lets his jealousy take over, and it causes him to bully Margot. When Margot writes a good poem, he whines “Aw, you didn’t write that!” (Bradbury). This is an example of how William lets his jealousy for Margot be seen in his words. William has set his mind on being jealous of Margot, which translates to him arguing against everything Margot does. In The Other Foot, Willie is filled with hate for the white man, and seeks revenge for what happened to his friends and family when he was young. When yelling at Hattie, Willie says “I’m just feeling mean. After all them years of doing what they did to our folks - my mom and dad, your mom and dad...how they hung my father...shot my mother? You remember? Or you got a memory...short like the others?” (Bradbury). Willie states how everyone else has moved on from the past. But, Willie still holds on to the past, and holds it against the white man. Both Willie and William let how they feel decide how they are going to act, and it clouds their judgement. William lets his anger and jealousy push him over the edge, and he locks Margot in a closet for hours. At the end of The Other Foot, Willie creates a mob and is ready to segregate the town out of revenge. But, he finally hears the white man, and can “really see him clear” (Bradbury). He let the darkness and anger go, unlike …show more content…

Both groups of bystanders are unwilling to stand against the bully. In All Summer in a Day, William acts as a leader for the other kids, and they do everything he says. William makes a joke, and even though the kids do not fully understand, they “laughed and shook their heads” (Bradbury). In The Other Foot, the other townspeople were “going to shake his hand. Aren’t we everybody?” (Bradbury). Willie has other plans, and wants to segregate the town. When he takes a stand against the mayor, he was “making a mob” (Bradbury). Everyone in the town began to follow Willie and do whatever he said. In each story, the characters are afraid of the bully. In All Summer in a Day, the other kids are afraid of being tormented like Margot was, and in The Other Foot, the other people are afraid of what Willie would do to them if they stood

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