ohoto

January 13, 2013
Per 3 Astronomy
All Summer In a Day The short story All Summer In a Day by Ray Bradbury is a story of a class of elementary students who live on Venus; a cloudy world that rains every day but for one hour ever seven years. The story takes place on the day of sun. Margot, the main character, is a young girl who moved from earth when she was an infant. Throughout both the both the short story and film is excluded from the class and bullied by a young boy named William. Both the film and short story have many similarities and differences; I personally like the story better because the setting is in your imagination, I don’t like how William is portrayed, and the ending. “Thousand upon thousands of days compounded and filled from one end to the other with rain, with the drum and gush of water, with the sweet crystal fall of showers and concussion of storms so heavy they were tidal waves come over the islands”. The way Bradbury describes his story setting leaves so much room for the imagination to roam. If two people hear the story they both could be imaging very different Venus’, while if the same two people watch the movie it leaves no room for the imagination; the setting is dictated by what is on screen. The movie has a scene in it where the class is painting and the teacher gives Margot a bunch of attention for her colorful painting of the sun, while William slowly crumples up his bleak black and white painting. In this moment you feel a bit of empathy for him. He’s jealous of Margot because he’s never seen the sun. I don’t like the movie because of this scene. I don’t like the fact that William can use this as an excuse to treat Margot the way he did. I’m not sure why this bothers me the way it does, but I don’t like this. My final reason I like the story better is because of the ending. In the movie Margot comes out and stands in the courtyard, in the middle of the rain while the class gives her the flowers they picked. While the book ends much darker; “Behind the closed door was only silence. They unlocked the door, even more slowly they let Margot out”. This ending is better because I feel like the story is dark and the ending should match this. Also it gets back to my point in the first paragraph; the short story ending is a loose end and allows the imagination to end the story, whether that is her coming out of the closet crying or her coming out ripping peoples head’s off. I like options. The written version of All Summer in a Day is a better version because the setting is in your imagination. You can create a story all your own the way it is written. How William is portrayed as less of a villain, and the dark ending and room for imagination.