The imagined world of “All Summer in a Day” seems to have lapsed into dystopia, where normal bounds of ethics, order, and justice are perverted. It is further suggested that William and the other children’s violence against Margot is directly linked with their estrangement from the nature experienced on Earth, which seems to represent an estrangement from childhood itself. Not only have the children been plucked away from nurturing Earth, but Venus’s relentless rain prevents them from running amongst that planet’s unbroken octopus-like jungle. Forced to live in the tunnels of an underground city, the children lead a sterile, artificial existence that leaves them cruel and unfeeling.

Both the children and Margot suffer in different ways as a result of their alienation from nature. Margot is a living symbol of humanity deprived of nature’s warmth and healing power. Away from nature, she turns almost ghost-like, seldom talking, playing, or living in the moment. If the sun represents nature at its peak, the never-ending rain is symbolic of a natural imbalance, and this imbalance threatens to drain the life out of Margo. The distance from the sun causes Margo to wilt, both physically and spiritually:

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.

Tellingly, it is only a communion with nature, which Bradbury describes vividly, that restores the other children to their empathetic human selves. After the children have drunk in the sun’s heat and freshness in their brief two-hour summer, they unlock Margot, finally realizing with shame the gravity of their crime. Thus, Bradbury suggests that nature is essential to the survival not just of humanity, but of human-ness itself.