Fatima 1 Nawal Fatima Ms. Dobrolevska ENG2D0- I May 16th 2023 Theme Paragraph The short story “All Summer in a Day” by Ray Badbury is about nostalgia which is seen when the students reminisce about the sun as well as how it looked and felt on their skin. In short, the story is about humans living on Venus where the sun only shines for two hours after seven years of loud, gushing rain. Margot thinks about all the times she heard the other children stir, at night, in remembrance of what the sun was like. Nostalgia by definition would mean “a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period” (Merriam-Webster). In the short story, the kids yearn to feel the sun on their face, to bathe in it. They long for the absence of endless rain, for it to be replaced by the burn of the sun. While standing in the rain, waiting for the sun to shine, Margot buries herself in the memories of that past. She thinks about how the other students also miss the sun. “She [Margot] knew they [the other students] were dreaming and remembering gold [...] they remembered a warmness, like a blushing in the face” (Bradbury 1). The quote shows the extent of the nostalgia the students feel. They long for the sun so much so that they even dream about it, in hopes that they get to see it in person. The story expresses the students yearning for the sun and the warmth they lack in life. Nostalgia is something almost everyone experiences in life. It usually inspires positive emotions and invokes feelings of motivation that helps to unite a person to their authentic self. Even though nostalgia appears to have many positive effects in real life, it only evokes personal Fatima 2 dissatisfaction and social unrest in the story. The author uses a very vital aspect of human nature to showcase how greed and jealousy can push humans to be cruel to each other. Fatima 3 Works Cited Bradbury, Ray. All Summer in a Day. Scholastic Incorporated, 2012. Merriam-Webster. “Nostalgia Definition & Meaning.” Merriam-Webster, 6 May 2023, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nostalgia. Accessed 16 May 2023.
