Previous Next

It had been raining for seven years; thousands upon thousands of days compounded and filled from one end to the other with rain, with the drum and gush of water, with the sweet crystal fall of showers and the concussion of storms so heavy they were tidal waves come over the islands. A thousand forests had been crushed under the rain and grown up a thousand times to be crushed again.

The Venus of Ray Bradbury’s imagination is one where natural forces are almost unimaginably powerful. This quote, which occurs at the beginning of the story, introduces the setting and conveys the daily and unending violence of the natural world to which the humans on Venus are subjected. For the settlers, the planet’s brutality is a constant reminder of their relative weakness in a position of genuine danger; even the great forests of the planet are decimated by its powerful rains. But the quote also reveals that there is real beauty in the destructive power of nature, and it reminds readers of nature’s propensity to both annihilate and renew life all at once.

The children lay out, laughing, on the jungle mattress, and heard it sigh and squeak under them resilient and alive…[B]ut most of all they squinted at the sun until the tears ran down their faces; they put their hands up to that yellowness and that amazing blueness and they breathed of the fresh, fresh air and listened to the silence which suspended them in a blessed sea of no sound and no motion.

A scene of children playing outside on a sunny day might be unremarkable to a person on Earth, but for the children of Venus it is an overwhelmingly joyful experience. The long-awaited appearance of the sun breathes life into the previously stark and foreboding natural setting, and the seemingly mundane elements—bright sunlight, a blue sky, outside air—become incredible and amazing. Additionally, the natural world, which the children have only viewed from behind thick glass, becomes interactive as the children experience the feel of the ground, sunlight, and air. This quote reveals the power of nature to inspire joy, but it also stands in contrast to normal life on Venus and sheds light on the harm and misery humans suffer when living apart from nature.

Previous section Quotes that Drive the Plot Next section The Affliction of Alienation

Take a Study Break