The Illustrated Man

In the 1950’s science fiction collection of stories The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury, there are two stories that express the main idea of revenge and they are The Other Foot and The Veldt. In The Other Foot, revenge is seen when Willie takes revenge on the white people because of how they treated his parents and the other black people on Earth. In The Veldt the children, Wendy and Peter, take revenge on their parents when they don’t let them take their rocket to New York, this revenge builds up until it takes over the children’s minds and they become unhealthily obsessed over it. There are many differences between these two types of revenge that are important to the reader in many different ways.

In The Other Foot revenge is sought by the black people. When they lived on earth the white people treated them very badly. They were forced to sit in the back of buses and theaters, they were shoe-shiners, slaves and many were even hanged for no real reason. When the black people all moved to Mars their lives were drastically changed as they could now live in peace and happiness. When the news spread of a white man coming to Mars in a rocket the Martians prepared themselves and their towns for the arrival. They gathered their weapons, ropes and set up the back of buses and theaters for white people, ready to get their revenge for how their ancestors had been treated. However when everyone saw the frail, old white man and listened to his story of Earths destruction they realized that there was actually no need for revenge. “Willie jerked his head and his mouth opened, Hattie saw the recognition in his dark eyes” the black people understood that the white people had already suffered enough during Earths extermination and so the situation was over, everybody was equal. This theme of revenge is a big part of The Other Foot and is important to the reader because it teaches how revenge can be resolved in a fair and legitimate manner and also to always treat people how you