What literary devices does Ray Bradbury use in "All Summer in a Day"?

Bradbury is known for his use of literary devices, which give a lyrical, poetic quality to his work. This story is drenched in literary devices. These include the following.

Dialogue: Dialogue characterizes the children and lends a sense of immediacy, as if we are overhearing a scene. The opening dialogue builds suspense with a series of questions and answers that make us wonder what is going on:

"Ready?"

"Ready."

"Now?"

"Soon."

The opening is an example of a literary device known as in media res, or starting in the middle of the action. We start in the middle an exchange of dialogue that at first makes no sense to us.

Anaphora: In anaphora, the same word or words are repeated at the beginning of consecutive lines. And example is the following:

It rained.

It had been raining...

Repetition: Repetition occurs when words are repeated over and over again to build a sense of excitement. An example is the following:

a thousand forests had been crushed under the rain and grown up a thousand times to be crushed again.

Polysyndeton. Bradbury also frequently uses polysyndeton, which is a series of conjunctions. One example is when Bradbury writes,

rain and rain and rain.

The device creates a breathless sense of anticipation, mimicking the excitement of the children.

Metaphor: The story is saturated in metaphor. Examples include the following:

the sweet crystal fall of showers and the concussion of storms so heavy they were tidal waves come over the islands.

Simile: The sun is described as being "like a lemon." The children are "like a feverish wheel, all tumbling spokes."

Imagery: story is awash in imagery. For example, we can visualize what Margot looks like from the following:

Margot stood alone. She was a very frail girl who looked as if she had been lost in the rain for years and the rain had washed out the blue from her eyes and the red from her mouth and the yellow from her hair.

Alliteration: Another way Bradbury creates a sense of rhythm is through alliteration:

Now she stood, separate, staring ...

First things first: what are literary devices? These are techniques that authors use to express themselves in an artistic or memorable way. One example is similes, which are comparisons using the words like or as. Another type of literary device is called foreshadowing, and this is where an indication or warning is given about something that will happen later in the story. The final literary device that I will mention is imagery, which is descriptive language that is used to paint a picture in the reader's mind.

A number of similes can be found in this great story. The first one is close to the beginning, when the children, who are anticipating seeing the sun for the first time that they will ever remember, are "pressed to each other like so many roses, so many weeds." This provides a delightful image of children sandwiched together at the window, waiting for the rain which has been falling for seven years to stop. When Margot, the only child in the class to have really experienced the sun before, attempts to describe it, she uses two similes, comparing the sun to "a penny" and "a fire in the stove."

For the duration of the sun being out on this memorable day, Margot finds herself locked in a closet. Her classmates, who had locked her in, simply forgot about her when the sun appeared. This unfortunate incident is foreshadowed earlier in the story when Margot's classmates are unkind to her and refuse to believe her descriptions of the sun. The cruelty that they display in imprisoning her is foreshadowed by their earlier unkindness.

Discussing colors can be a great way of introducing imagery to a story. Ray Bradbury uses this to great effect when describing the color of the Venusian jungle.

It was the color of rubber and ash, this jungle, from the many years without sun. It was the color of stones and white cheeses and ink, and it was the color of the moon.

While this description does not create an image that is necessarily attractive, it creates a vivid image that one can see in one's mind's eye, and this is the purpose of imagery.

What imagery is used in "All Summer in a Day" by Ray Bradbury?

It should be noted that Ray Bradbury, across his entire writing career, was a very imagery-intensive writer. "All Summer in a Day" is hardly unique in this respect. Whether one is speaking about novels like Fahrenheit 451 or Something Wicked This Way Comes, fix-up novels such as The Martian Chronicles, or so many of his innumerable short stories, you will tend to find that same richly lyrical quality almost continuously present.

We see this in Bradbury's description of the planet Venus itself, with its heavy, unceasing rainfall (and Bradbury's evocative description of that rainfall), but his descriptive powers conjure a deeply visual impression of the planet's alien jungle as well:

They stopped running and stood in the great jungle that covered Venus, that grew and never stopped growing, tumultuously, even as you watched it. It was a nest of octopi, clustering up great arms of fleshlike weed, wavering, flowering in this brief spring. It was the color of stones and white cheeses and ink, and it was the color of the moon.

This description is joined by the description of the children playing within this jungle and feeling a shared sense of awe at the experience of being outside.

Like in so much of Bradbury's work, imagery appears to be almost omnipresent. In addition to his description of Venus itself, you can observe its use in his description of Margot, thin and frail, almost ghostlike in her quiet somberness:

She was an old photograph dusted from an album, whitened away, and if she spoke at all her voice would be a ghost. Now she stood, separate, staring at the rain and the loud wet world beyond the huge glass.

Bradbury thus uses imagery to convey the essential truths both his setting and the characters that inhabit it: in Margot's case, both her sense of isolation as well as her longing for the sun are primarily driven and advanced through the images Bradbury conjures regarding her, as we can observe in a passage like the following:

And this was because she would play no games with them in the echoing tunnels of the underground city. If they tagged her and ran, she stood blinking after them and did not follow. When the class sang songs about happiness and life and games her lips barely moved. Only when they sang about the sun and the summer did her lips move as she watched the drenched windows.

Bradbury tended to seek to use imagery with the aim of making his worlds and characters come to life in the imaginations of his readers. This imagery-focused and highly lyrical approach to prose is one of the central characteristics that defines his authorial voice.

“All Summer in a Day” is the story of a group of children on Venus who gang up on a girl named Margot.  The story uses imagery to describe the setting and the characters.  Imagery helps drive home the theme of victimization.

Imagery is descriptive language that appeals to the five senses and the reader’s imagination to create a mental image for the reader.

Since the story takes place on the planet Venus, it is important for imagery to describe it.  The first thing that needs to be established is the prevalence of rain.  Bradbury uses repetition of the word “thousands” to make the reader feel the overwhelming presence of rain. 

[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.

He also uses imagery to reinforce the theme of isolation on the planet Venus. 

 A thousand forests had been crushed under the rain and grown up a thousand times to be crushed again. And this was the way life was forever on the planet Venus

People, described as “rocket men” live on Venus in a very isolated way.  Not only are they removed from earth, they also never get to see the sun and are closed in by rain.

Simile, a type of figurative imagery, is used to describe the children.

The children pressed to each other like so many roses, so many weeds, intermixed, peering out for a look at the hidden sun.

The children are compared to roses, and then weeds.  This foreshadows their lack of individualism, since they act as a mob, and demonstrates how they look innocent but are actually not.

Margot is different from the other kids.  Imagery in the story sets her apart.

She was a very frail girl who looked as if she had been lost in the rain for years and the rain had washed out the blue from her eyes and the red from her mouth and the yellow from her hair. 

The metaphor of Margot lost in the rain describes how she is different from the other kids, and how having seen the sun isolates her from them.

What stylistic devices does Bradbury use in "All Summer in a Day"?

I think that you can find many examples of stylistic devices in Bradbury's short story.  The fact that the short story is the chosen form is powerful.   In selecting the form of a short story, Bradbury is able to forcefully drive home the emotional dynamics of Margot and her classmates in a brief and powerful setting.  At the same time, the short story delivers the idea that Margot's story is a small one, but one that resonates quite lucidly.  The symbolism of the closet is another example of stylistic device that Bradbury brings out to heighten a theme of tyranny of the majority.  The fact that Margot, the only person who speaks the truth of the sun and the minority, is thrown into a closet and forgotten in one helps to enhance the work's assertion that silencing voices is antithetical to any pursuit of democratic notions of the good.  I would also suggest that Bradbury's use of imagery is quite intense.  The creation of the sun and all that it brings as the personification of pure joy is powerful.  Margot is the only one who understands it and she is rejected by her peers.  When they enjoy the sun and all that it brings, they do so alone, while she is locked in the closet.  Only when the sun leaves, when happiness is gone, do the children recognize that Margot is still locked up in the closet.  The image of the sun and the more potent image of Margot being unable to experience it while the others do is lingering inside the mind of the reader long after the story is completed.