The Other Foot

by

Ray Bradbury

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on The Other Foot makes teaching easy.
The old white man, who is never named, steps out of the rocket to tell the Martians why the Earth people have come to Mars: a nuclear war has rendered Earth uninhabitable, and there are only five hundred thousand survivors on the entire planet. He humbly asks the Martians to allow the Earth people to come to Mars, asserting they will work for the Martians and endure whatever treatment the Martians see fit. Although many Martians initially planned to attack the white man and reinstate segregation and prejudice, the white man’s humility and stories about how everything on Earth has been destroyed (and, with it, all physical traces of racism and slavery) change their minds. The Martians accept the white man’s request for help and assert that all people—regardless of race—are now “on the same level.”

The White Man Quotes in The Other Foot

The The Other Foot quotes below are all either spoken by The White Man or refer to The White Man. 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:
Revenge and Empathy Theme Icon
).
The Other Foot Quotes

Well, the white people live on Earth, which is where we all come from, twenty years ago. We just up and walked away and came to Mars and set down and built towns and here we are. Now we’re Martians instead of Earth people. And no white men’ve come up here in all that time. That’s the story.

Related Characters: Hattie Johnson (speaker), The White Man, Hattie and Willie’s Children
Page Number: 41
Explanation and Analysis:

“You ain’t going to lynch him?”

“Lynch him?” Everyone laughed. Mr. Brown slapped his knee. “Why, bless you, child, no! We’re going to shake his hand. Ain’t we, everyone?”

Related Characters: Hattie Johnson (speaker), Mr. Brown (speaker), The White Man
Related Symbols: The Rope
Page Number: 42
Explanation and Analysis:

I’m not feeling Christian […] I’m just feeling mean. After all them years of doing what they did to our folks—my mom and dad, and your mom and dad—You remember? You remember how they hung my father on Knockwood Hill and shot my mother? You remember? Or you got a memory that’s short like the others?

Related Characters: Willie Johnson (speaker), Hattie Johnson, The White Man
Page Number: 43
Explanation and Analysis:

“Well […] the shoe’s on the other foot now. We’ll see who gets laws passed against him, who gets lynched, who rides the back of streetcars, who gets segregated in shows. We’ll just wait and see.”

Related Characters: Willie Johnson (speaker), Hattie Johnson, The White Man
Page Number: 43
Explanation and Analysis:

Willie plunged out of the house. “You children come inside, I’m locking you up. You ain’t seeing no white man, you ain’t talking about them, you ain’t doing nothing.”

Related Characters: Willie Johnson (speaker), The White Man, Hattie and Willie’s Children
Page Number: 45
Explanation and Analysis:

All along the road people were looking up in the sky, or climbing in their cars, or riding in cars, and guns were sticking up out of some cars like telescopes sighting all the evils of a world coming to an end.

Related Characters: Willie Johnson, Hattie Johnson, The White Man
Page Number: 45
Explanation and Analysis:

The people were so close together it looked like one dark body with a thousand arms reaching out to take the weapons.

Related Characters: Willie Johnson, The White Man
Page Number: 46
Explanation and Analysis:

“We’ve been stupid. Before God we admit our stupidity and our evilness. All the Chinese and the Indians and the Russians and the British and the Americans. We’re asking to be taken in […] We deserve anything you want to do to us, but don’t shut us out.”

Related Characters: The White Man (speaker)
Page Number: 52
Explanation and Analysis:

“The Lord’s let us come through, a few here and a few there. And what happens next is up to all of us. The time for being fools is over. We got to be something else except fools. […] now the white man’s as lonely as we’ve always been. He’s got no home now, just like we didn’t have one for so long. Now everything’s even. We can start all over again, on the same level.”

Related Characters: Willie Johnson (speaker), Hattie Johnson, The White Man
Page Number: 56
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Other Foot LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Other Foot PDF

The White Man Quotes in The Other Foot

The The Other Foot quotes below are all either spoken by The White Man or refer to The White Man. 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:
Revenge and Empathy Theme Icon
).
The Other Foot Quotes

Well, the white people live on Earth, which is where we all come from, twenty years ago. We just up and walked away and came to Mars and set down and built towns and here we are. Now we’re Martians instead of Earth people. And no white men’ve come up here in all that time. That’s the story.

Related Characters: Hattie Johnson (speaker), The White Man, Hattie and Willie’s Children
Page Number: 41
Explanation and Analysis:

“You ain’t going to lynch him?”

“Lynch him?” Everyone laughed. Mr. Brown slapped his knee. “Why, bless you, child, no! We’re going to shake his hand. Ain’t we, everyone?”

Related Characters: Hattie Johnson (speaker), Mr. Brown (speaker), The White Man
Related Symbols: The Rope
Page Number: 42
Explanation and Analysis:

I’m not feeling Christian […] I’m just feeling mean. After all them years of doing what they did to our folks—my mom and dad, and your mom and dad—You remember? You remember how they hung my father on Knockwood Hill and shot my mother? You remember? Or you got a memory that’s short like the others?

Related Characters: Willie Johnson (speaker), Hattie Johnson, The White Man
Page Number: 43
Explanation and Analysis:

“Well […] the shoe’s on the other foot now. We’ll see who gets laws passed against him, who gets lynched, who rides the back of streetcars, who gets segregated in shows. We’ll just wait and see.”

Related Characters: Willie Johnson (speaker), Hattie Johnson, The White Man
Page Number: 43
Explanation and Analysis:

Willie plunged out of the house. “You children come inside, I’m locking you up. You ain’t seeing no white man, you ain’t talking about them, you ain’t doing nothing.”

Related Characters: Willie Johnson (speaker), The White Man, Hattie and Willie’s Children
Page Number: 45
Explanation and Analysis:

All along the road people were looking up in the sky, or climbing in their cars, or riding in cars, and guns were sticking up out of some cars like telescopes sighting all the evils of a world coming to an end.

Related Characters: Willie Johnson, Hattie Johnson, The White Man
Page Number: 45
Explanation and Analysis:

The people were so close together it looked like one dark body with a thousand arms reaching out to take the weapons.

Related Characters: Willie Johnson, The White Man
Page Number: 46
Explanation and Analysis:

“We’ve been stupid. Before God we admit our stupidity and our evilness. All the Chinese and the Indians and the Russians and the British and the Americans. We’re asking to be taken in […] We deserve anything you want to do to us, but don’t shut us out.”

Related Characters: The White Man (speaker)
Page Number: 52
Explanation and Analysis:

“The Lord’s let us come through, a few here and a few there. And what happens next is up to all of us. The time for being fools is over. We got to be something else except fools. […] now the white man’s as lonely as we’ve always been. He’s got no home now, just like we didn’t have one for so long. Now everything’s even. We can start all over again, on the same level.”

Related Characters: Willie Johnson (speaker), Hattie Johnson, The White Man
Page Number: 56
Explanation and Analysis: