Since the emotional impact of the story depends on how strongly we identity with her, it is important that we know what Margot's thoughts and feelings are. What Bradbury tries to do is drive a wedge between how the other children view Margot and how we as readers do. The children view her as an Other, an outsider, as one who won't join in their games, and they envy her for her memories of sunshine....
Since the emotional impact of the story depends on how strongly we identity with her, it is important that we know what Margot's thoughts and feelings are. What Bradbury tries to do is drive a wedge between how the other children view Margot and how we as readers do. The children view her as an Other, an outsider, as one who won't join in their games, and they envy her for her memories of sunshine. The reader, however, is encouraged to feel sympathy for her as a lonely and sensitive child who wants nothing more than to feel the sun again, so much so that her parents may leave Venus early to take her home. The more acutely we feel Margot's intense longing for the upcoming time in the sun, which occurs only once in seven years, the greater the impact when the children lock her in the closet so that she misses it. If we don't care about Margot, it won't matter to us that she loses her chance at the sun, and the whole story will fizzle out. Most readers, however, feel Margot's pain, which is why we are still reading the story decades after it was published.
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