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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 and Citation: 41

Explanation and Analysis:

In the beginning of the story, Hattie’s three young sons are excited about the white man’s arrival on Mars since they’ve never seen a white person before. In this passage, Hattie answers her boys’ questions about what white people are like and why they don’t live on Mars. She sums up the entire process of moving from Earth to Mars—which was likely lengthy and complicated—in a highly-simplified sentence. This suggests that Hattie aims to shield her children from the brutality of the racism that their mother escaped by coming to Mars. This moment also reflects the story’s eventual assertion of Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolo

“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 and Citation: 42

Explanation and Analysis:

After telling her sons to stay at home, Hattie runs down the road to the neighboring Browns’ house to see how they are preparing for the white man’s arrival. Hattie’s fear of a potential lynching in this moment gives context for her earlier anxieties while she discussing the white man with her children: she’s worried that the Martians will kill the man as payback for the abuse that the Martians suffered on Earth at the hands of white people. Although Mr. Brown’s hearty laughter suggests he wouldn’t dream of doing anything of the sort, it becomes clear as the story Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. U

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 and Citation: 43

Explanation and Analysis:

While driving away from the Browns’ home, Hattie deems Willie’s desire for vengeance against the visiting white man un-Christian. Willie responds by telling Hattie that his anger stems from the memory of what white people did to his family. Throughout the story, Willie never talks about how white men have abused him but rather focuses on the way that such men treated his parents. When he accuses his wife of having “a memory that’s short like the others,” Willie suggests that many Martians have suppressed their memories of what life was like on Earth. Willie’s tightly-held memories of pain and Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantiu

“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 and Citation: 43

Explanation and Analysis:

Still driving home together from the Browns’, Willie continues to espouse his hatred for white people. He tells his wife that on Mars, white people will be treated the way that black people were treated on Earth. Willie is alluding to the Jim Crow laws that upheld racial segregation in America from 1877 to 1964. “The Open Foot” was published in 1951, over a decade before such laws were abolished. In this passage, Willie explains that he wants to establish such segregationist laws on Mars but twist them so that they discriminate against white people as a means to exact Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae v

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 and Citation: 45

Explanation and Analysis:

While getting his guns from his house to prepare for the white man’s arrival, Willie decides to also lock his sons away. Up until this point, the three boys had been playing in the yard and talking excitedly about the white man, trying to imagine what white skin looks like—comparing it to milk, chalk, and flowers. Their musings revealed their innocence and the fact that they didn’t seem to have any concept of racial tension or to be aware of Earth’s history of racism and slavery. When Willie “plunge[s]” out of the house and furiously commands his children not to Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus v

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: The White Man, Willie Johnson, Hattie Johnson

Page Number and Citation: 45

Explanation and Analysis:

While accompanying Willie to the white man’s landing spot, Hattie notices that other people have also brought guns. The comparison between these guns and telescopes pointing toward a doomed world could be read as a reflection of the fact that Hattie’s community is safely on Mars while on Earth people are engaged in a massive atomic war. However, the passage could also be read as suggesting that Mars is now succumbing to some of the same evils that destroyed the Earth. Many Martians have been swept up in a wave of hatred and prejudice and given into Willie’s emotionally-charged call Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo mi

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

Related Characters: The White Man, Willie Johnson

Page Number and Citation: 46

Explanation and Analysis:

Upon reaching the landing port for the white man’s rocket, Willie begins passing out guns to the growing crowd, the sheer size of which underscores how monumental the white man’s visit is; it seems that everyone in the Martian community is present. More importantly, by describing the crowd as “one dark body” Bradbury suggests it is no longer made up of individual people with independent thoughts; rather, it has adopted a mob mentality and bends to Willie’s will. In this passage, no one stops to consider if violence is the right way to deal with the white man’s arrival. Instead, Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet do

“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 and Citation: 52

Explanation and Analysis:

After landing on Mars, the white man tells the crowd of Martians about World War III and the extent of Earth’s destruction. After asking for the Martian’s help in getting survivors to Mars, the white man then apologizes for the way the Martians—that is, black people—were treated on Earth. He humbles himself completely, declaring that he—and the rest of the Earth people—are unworthy of forgiveness for their “stupidity” and “evilness.” When the white man says, “We deserve anything you want to do to us,” he anticipates the Martians’ desire to initiate reverse Jim Crow laws discriminating against white people. This Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae volupt

She wanted to get at the hate of them all, to pry at it and work at it until she found a little chink, and then pull out a pebble or a stone or a brick and then a part of the wall, and once started, the whole edifice might roar down and be done away with. It was teetering now. But which was the keystone, and how to get at it? How to touch them and get a thing started in all of them to make a ruin of their hate?

Related Characters: Willie Johnson, Hattie Johnson

Page Number and Citation: 53

Explanation and Analysis:

There is a tense silence after the white man finishes his speech, in which Hattie can feel that the crowd is still hateful and wanting revenge for the centuries of cruelty the Martians were subjected to on Earth. Hattie’s thoughts about how to dismantle hatred and racism are based on the premise that neither are natural but rather are manmade constructions, and as such can be toppled like any other structure. She likens the crowd’s anger to an unstable wall that will tumble into a heap of rubble when its load-bearing element (its “keystone”) is removed. Like this wall, the Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscip

“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 and Citation: 56

Explanation and Analysis:

In this passage, Willie and Hattie are driving home from meeting the white man. Willie’s attitude about the man (and white men in general) has shifted dramatically, and he no longer is itching for violence and revenge. Willie mirrors the white man’s humility when he says, “The time for being fools is over.” This implies that Willie realizes that the community has been too quick to seek vengeance . He also recognizes his responsibility as an individual, as he affirms, “what happens next is up to all of us.” It seems that Willie understands that he can use his influence Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequu

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