The Fun They Had

by

Isaac Asimov

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on The Fun They Had makes teaching easy.

Margie Character Analysis

Margie is the 11-year-old protagonist of the story and a friend of Tommy’s. The third-person-limited point of view is filtered through her childlike innocence and curiosity. Margie is a curious girl who is constantly asking questions and wanting to be around other people. This personality may account for her recent poor performance in her fact-based and passive geography lessons; Margie seems to crave an education that is interactive, engaging, and involved other people, but this vision is incompatible with her computerized and individualized model of education. In particular, she longs to be around other children her age—hence her constantly hanging around Tommy and dreaming of how fun it would have been to attend school with a whole neighborhood of children—but instead she’s forced to sit alone in the schoolroom in her house, day after day, watching a computer screen talk at her. Margie is also a highly imaginative child, as evidenced by her ability to picture historical scenes from Tommy’s old book about schools from many centuries ago. After reading through the ancient book and learning about the ways of the past, Margie loses herself in her imagination, envisioning what it would be like to be a student hundreds of years ago and dreaming of “the fun they had.”

Margie Quotes in The Fun They Had

The The Fun They Had quotes below are all either spoken by Margie or refer to Margie. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Technological Progress and Education Theme Icon
).
The Fun They Had Quotes

Margie even wrote it that night in her diary. On the page headed May 17, 2155, she wrote, “Today Tommy found a real book!”

Related Characters: Margie, Tommy
Related Symbols: Tommy’s Book
Page Number: 8
Explanation and Analysis:

It was a very old book. Margie’s grandfather once said that when he was a little boy his grandfather told him there was a time all stories were printed on paper.

Related Characters: Margie
Related Symbols: Tommy’s Book
Page Number: 8
Explanation and Analysis:

They turned the pages, which were yellow and crinkly, and it was awfully funny to read words that stood still instead of moving the way they were supposed to—on a screen, you know. And then, when they turned back to the page before, it had the same words on it that it had had when they read it the first time.

Related Characters: Margie, Tommy
Related Symbols: Tommy’s Book
Page Number: 8
Explanation and Analysis:

“School? What’s there to write about school? I hate school. Margie always hated school, but now she hated it more than ever. The mechanical teacher had been giving her test after test in geography and she had been doing worse and worse until her mother had shaken her head sorrowfully and sent for the County Inspector. “

Related Characters: Margie (speaker), County Inspector
Related Symbols: Tommy’s Book
Page Number: 9
Explanation and Analysis:

The Inspector had smiled after he was finished and patted Margie’s head. He said to her mother, “It’s not the little girl’s fault, Mrs. Jones. I think the geography sector was geared a little too quick. Those things happen sometimes. I’ve slowed it up to an average ten-year level. Actually, the overall pattern of her progress is quite satisfactory.”

Related Characters: County Inspector (speaker), Margie, Margie’s Mother / Mrs. Jones
Page Number: 9
Explanation and Analysis:

Tommy looked at her with very superior eye. “Because it’s not our kind of school, stupid. This is the old kind of school that they had hundreds and hundreds of years ago.” He added loftily, pronouncing the word carefully, “Centuries ago.”

Related Characters: Tommy (speaker), Margie
Related Symbols: Tommy’s Book
Page Number: 11
Explanation and Analysis:

“A man? How could a man be a teacher?”

“Well, he just told the boys and girls things and gave them homework and asked them questions.”

“A man isn’t smart enough.”

Related Characters: Margie (speaker), Tommy (speaker)
Related Symbols: Tommy’s Book
Page Number: 11
Explanation and Analysis:

She was thinking about the old schools they had when her grandfather’s grandfather was a little boy. All the kids from the whole neighborhood came, laughing and shouting in the schoolyard, sitting together in the schoolroom, going home together at the end of the day. They learned the same things so they could help one another on the homework and talk about it […] Margie was thinking about how the kids must have loved it in the old days. She was thinking about the fun they had.

Related Characters: Margie
Related Symbols: Tommy’s Book
Page Number: 12
Explanation and Analysis:
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The Fun They Had PDF

Margie Quotes in The Fun They Had

The The Fun They Had quotes below are all either spoken by Margie or refer to Margie. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Technological Progress and Education Theme Icon
).
The Fun They Had Quotes

Margie even wrote it that night in her diary. On the page headed May 17, 2155, she wrote, “Today Tommy found a real book!”

Related Characters: Margie, Tommy
Related Symbols: Tommy’s Book
Page Number: 8
Explanation and Analysis:

It was a very old book. Margie’s grandfather once said that when he was a little boy his grandfather told him there was a time all stories were printed on paper.

Related Characters: Margie
Related Symbols: Tommy’s Book
Page Number: 8
Explanation and Analysis:

They turned the pages, which were yellow and crinkly, and it was awfully funny to read words that stood still instead of moving the way they were supposed to—on a screen, you know. And then, when they turned back to the page before, it had the same words on it that it had had when they read it the first time.

Related Characters: Margie, Tommy
Related Symbols: Tommy’s Book
Page Number: 8
Explanation and Analysis:

“School? What’s there to write about school? I hate school. Margie always hated school, but now she hated it more than ever. The mechanical teacher had been giving her test after test in geography and she had been doing worse and worse until her mother had shaken her head sorrowfully and sent for the County Inspector. “

Related Characters: Margie (speaker), County Inspector
Related Symbols: Tommy’s Book
Page Number: 9
Explanation and Analysis:

The Inspector had smiled after he was finished and patted Margie’s head. He said to her mother, “It’s not the little girl’s fault, Mrs. Jones. I think the geography sector was geared a little too quick. Those things happen sometimes. I’ve slowed it up to an average ten-year level. Actually, the overall pattern of her progress is quite satisfactory.”

Related Characters: County Inspector (speaker), Margie, Margie’s Mother / Mrs. Jones
Page Number: 9
Explanation and Analysis:

Tommy looked at her with very superior eye. “Because it’s not our kind of school, stupid. This is the old kind of school that they had hundreds and hundreds of years ago.” He added loftily, pronouncing the word carefully, “Centuries ago.”

Related Characters: Tommy (speaker), Margie
Related Symbols: Tommy’s Book
Page Number: 11
Explanation and Analysis:

“A man? How could a man be a teacher?”

“Well, he just told the boys and girls things and gave them homework and asked them questions.”

“A man isn’t smart enough.”

Related Characters: Margie (speaker), Tommy (speaker)
Related Symbols: Tommy’s Book
Page Number: 11
Explanation and Analysis:

She was thinking about the old schools they had when her grandfather’s grandfather was a little boy. All the kids from the whole neighborhood came, laughing and shouting in the schoolyard, sitting together in the schoolroom, going home together at the end of the day. They learned the same things so they could help one another on the homework and talk about it […] Margie was thinking about how the kids must have loved it in the old days. She was thinking about the fun they had.

Related Characters: Margie
Related Symbols: Tommy’s Book
Page Number: 12
Explanation and Analysis: