All Summer in a Day
Encyclopedia
"All Summer in a Day" is a hort science fiction story ] by the author Ray Bradbury
. This story was originally published in the March 1954 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
The story is about a class of school children on Venus
, which in this tale is a jungle world of constant flooding rainstorms ocassionated by the water being constanly evaporated by Venus high temperatures these leads to a planet were the sun is only visible for two hours every seven years. Such an occurrence is imminent.
One of the children, Margot, had moved to Venus from Earth
five years before the story takes place, and she is the only one in her class to remember sunshine due to the fact that the other children were to young to remember it. She has become frail and miserable there by the constant bully on her do to jealousy of the sunshine theme, of course she has a nervous breakdown do to the fact that shes being bullied, and has not seen the sun since 5 years ago. Once a month ago, she had refused to shower in the school shower rooms, had clutched her hands to her ears and over her head, screaming her lungs out.
And when the teacher asks them to write a poem about the sun it only gets worse:
She describes it as "a penny", or "like a fire in the stove". The other children refuse to believe her, claiming that she's lying and doesn't remember.And this only draws them mad.leading to close Margot up in the closet at the time of the prediction of the sun coming out,William the student who most often tortures her has these brilliant idea of locking them them on the closet the other kids react monkey see monkey do.
As the sun is about to appear, the teacher arrives to take the class outside to enjoy their only hour of sunshine. In their astonishment and joy, they all forget everything about Margot. They run, play, skip, jump, and prance about, savoring every second of their newly found freedom.,Its much better than sun lamps,one of them cries.
At the middle of there freedom a girl feels a raindrop on her. Thunder sounds, and they run back inside. Suddenly, one of them remembers Margot, still locked in the closet. They stand frozen ashamed for what they have done, unable to "meet each other's glances." The precious sun has come and gone, leaving her still pale in gloom and darkness, not having seen it. They walk slowly towards the closet, now silent, and let her out.
" in 1982, is somewhat less emotionally distressing. The ending is expanded to show the children atoning for their horrible act by giving Margot flowers that they picked while the sun was out.
entitled "Wooldoor Sockbat's Giggle Wiggle Funny Tickle Non-Traditional Progressive Multicultural Roundtable!" (Season 3, Episode 2), Ling-Ling and Foxxy lock Toot in the closet, while a weiner-mobile is parked outside of the house. In the joy and merriment of enjoying free weiners, they forget that Toot is locked away.
All Summer in a Day is mentioned in a description of main character Oscar Wao, from Junot Díaz
's The Brief Wondrous life of ossc@r wow
. "Sucks a lot to be left out of adolescence, sort of like getting locked in the closet on Venus when the sun appears for the first time in 100 years." Although in Bradbury's All Summer in a Day, it comes out every seven years.
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
. This story was originally published in the March 1954 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
The story is about a class of school children on Venus
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6, bright enough to cast shadows...
, which in this tale is a jungle world of constant flooding rainstorms ocassionated by the water being constanly evaporated by Venus high temperatures these leads to a planet were the sun is only visible for two hours every seven years. Such an occurrence is imminent.
One of the children, Margot, had moved to Venus from Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
five years before the story takes place, and she is the only one in her class to remember sunshine due to the fact that the other children were to young to remember it. She has become frail and miserable there by the constant bully on her do to jealousy of the sunshine theme, of course she has a nervous breakdown do to the fact that shes being bullied, and has not seen the sun since 5 years ago. Once a month ago, she had refused to shower in the school shower rooms, had clutched her hands to her ears and over her head, screaming her lungs out.
And when the teacher asks them to write a poem about the sun it only gets worse:
-
- "I think the sun is a flower,
- That blooms for just one hour."
She describes it as "a penny", or "like a fire in the stove". The other children refuse to believe her, claiming that she's lying and doesn't remember.And this only draws them mad.leading to close Margot up in the closet at the time of the prediction of the sun coming out,William the student who most often tortures her has these brilliant idea of locking them them on the closet the other kids react monkey see monkey do.
As the sun is about to appear, the teacher arrives to take the class outside to enjoy their only hour of sunshine. In their astonishment and joy, they all forget everything about Margot. They run, play, skip, jump, and prance about, savoring every second of their newly found freedom.,Its much better than sun lamps,one of them cries.
At the middle of there freedom a girl feels a raindrop on her. Thunder sounds, and they run back inside. Suddenly, one of them remembers Margot, still locked in the closet. They stand frozen ashamed for what they have done, unable to "meet each other's glances." The precious sun has come and gone, leaving her still pale in gloom and darkness, not having seen it. They walk slowly towards the closet, now silent, and let her out.
Television episode
A 30 minute television adaptation, originally broadcast on the PBS children's series "WonderWorksWonderWorks
WonderWorks was a project jointly owned by The Walt Disney Company and PBS that made short, made for TV movies out of acclaimed children's books...
" in 1982, is somewhat less emotionally distressing. The ending is expanded to show the children atoning for their horrible act by giving Margot flowers that they picked while the sun was out.
Pop culture
In the episode of the animation series Drawn TogetherDrawn Together
Drawn Together is an American animated television series, which ran on Comedy Central from October 27, 2004 to November 14, 2007. The series was created by Dave Jeser and Matt Silverstein, and uses a sitcom format with a TV reality show setting...
entitled "Wooldoor Sockbat's Giggle Wiggle Funny Tickle Non-Traditional Progressive Multicultural Roundtable!" (Season 3, Episode 2), Ling-Ling and Foxxy lock Toot in the closet, while a weiner-mobile is parked outside of the house. In the joy and merriment of enjoying free weiners, they forget that Toot is locked away.
All Summer in a Day is mentioned in a description of main character Oscar Wao, from Junot Díaz
Junot Díaz
Junot Díaz is a Dominican-American writer and creative writing professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Central to Díaz's work is the immigrant experience...
's The Brief Wondrous life of ossc@r wow
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a best-selling novel written by Dominican author Junot Díaz. Although a work of fiction, the novel is set in New Jersey where Díaz was raised and deals explicitly with his ancestral homeland's experience under dictator Rafael Trujillo...
. "Sucks a lot to be left out of adolescence, sort of like getting locked in the closet on Venus when the sun appears for the first time in 100 years." Although in Bradbury's All Summer in a Day, it comes out every seven years.
External links
- "All Summer in a Day" at BestScienceFictionStories.com - A review of the story with resources for finding it.
- The story in a printable Word document.