Ray Bradbury's 'All Summer In A Day'

Words: 623
Pages: 3

In life, everyone longs for something. Many people can think of a time when they wanted something desperately. In Ray Bradbury’s “All Summer In A Day” the characters live on Venus, where it rains constantly. The sun only shows it face for one hour every seven years. Throughout the story, the author uses similes, description, and symbolism to show the children’s longing for the sun. Bradbury uses description to paint a picture in the reader’s mind, and similes to compare hard concepts to the already known. For example, in paragraph six Bradbury describes the rain and sun and the contrast of the children’s emotions when thinking about both. “She knew they remembered a warmness, like a blushing in the face...But then they always awoke to the tatting drum, the endless shaking down of clear bead necklaces upon the roof…” The description of the sun and rain helps the reader understand the …show more content…
Rain symbolizes depression and sadness. The children are like the rain. The children long for sun and get so depressed that the start to believe the sun isn’t even real. “‘You’re lying!’...cried the children.” The sun represents hope, and because the children do not know the sun, they have little hope. But, they still know something is out there: they still long for something to make them feel at peace. Margot is like the sun being washed away by the rain. While Margot was on earth, she had the sun but as the rain washed all of her happiness away, she became more like the rain. “She was a frail girl who looked as if she had been lost in the rain for years..she was an old photograph dusted from an album…” But even as she is washed away by depression, sadness, and longing, she still has a ray of hope inside of her. In ‘All Summer In A Day”, symbolism show the reader the emotions of the children. Using the craft of symbolism helps the author get across his theme of