30 pages • 1 hour read
Ray BradburyThe Other Foot
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1951A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Essay Topics
How does Bradbury indicate Willie’s changing attitude toward white people in general and the old man in particular over the course of the story? How does he view the prospect of a white visitor at the beginning of the story? What changes his mind?
Analyze the character of Hattie. What motivates her? What clues are offered about her past on Earth? Why does she initially go along with Willie in his attempts to organize a lynching and then change her mind at the airport?
Examine the role of gender in “The Other Foot.” Hattie first appears in her kitchen, where she is tending a pot of soup and then speaks to her children. How does her portrayal change? How do men and women treat each other on Mars? How does this reflect (or fail to reflect) gender roles in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s?
The killing of Willie’s father, although fictional, bears all the hallmarks of a real-world lynching. Read the Equal Justice Initiative’s report on the history of lynching in the United States. Which details does Ray Bradbury choose to lift from real-life events and which does he fictionalize? What is the significance of these choices?
What is the relationship like between Hattie and Willie? How does their dialogue create a profile of their marriage?
About half of “The Other Foot” is told through dialogue. How does Bradbury use language to indicate who is speaking even when no dialogue tags (like “he said”) are in use? What distinguishes the speech of the Martians from the speech of the old man?
Is Willie a villain? Is Hattie a hero? Why or why not?
Bradbury insisted that stories like “The Other Foot” were fantasy rather than science fiction, despite their use of settings like Mars and elements like rocket ships and space colonization. To what extent does “The Other Foot” conform to these two genres? To what extent does it parallel works in other genres?
In 1948, then-President Harry Truman issued an executive order ending racial segregation in the United States military. For many Americans, this was their first experience with a racially integrated society in which white and non-white Americans were expected to work together. “The Other Foot” presents a fantastical vision of racial integration in a non-military context. How does it reflect on the racial politics of the mid-20th century?
What is the meaning of the story’s ending? Will Martian society remain harmonious after the arrival of 500,000 refugees from Earth? Why or why not?
Related Titles
By Ray Bradbury
