By Joel Lawore, III Form

The Sun Shines on the Mood: Mood in Bradbury’s “All Summer in a Day”

Instructor’s Note: Students were tasked with writing a concise, clear, analytical paragraph on a topic of their choosing in response to Ray Bradbury’s “All Summer in a Day.”

In “The Lottery,” by Ray Bradbury, the sun coming out for the first time shifts the mood from gloomy to joyful through the use of buoyant words and the reaction of the children. Bradbury carefully chooses certain words and phrases with bright connotations to shift the mood. An example of this occurs when he writes that the children were “feeling the sun on their cheeks like a warm iron” (Bradbury 3). Here, Bradbury uses jovial words such as “warm” to describe the sun. Bradbury’s diction creates a positive mood, shifting the overall atmosphere from dismal to radiant. In addition, Bradbury goes into detail when describing the children’s reaction to the sun to emphasize the joyful mood. For example, when the sun comes out, the children “ran for an hour and did not stop running” (Bradbury 4). They did not stop running because they were ecstatic that the sun had come out. The bright words that the author uses to describe the positive reaction of the children help to shift the mood from morose to merry. Ultimately, Bradbury’s word choice to describe the sun as well as the description of the children’s reaction to the sun shift the mood.

Joel Lawore is a III form boarding student from Colonia, New Jersey whose favorite classes are robotics and Algebra II. His extracurricular interests include soccer, wrestling, and The Office.

Works Cited

Bradbury, Ray. “All Summer in a Day.” A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories. New York: Perennial, 1990. 88-93. Print.