dandelionwine

What is happiness many may ask such a question but for a young boy named Douglas Spaulding in a novel by Ray Bradbury it seems to be the idea of summer, by definition and it doesn’t matter what happens as long as its summer whether its life death and throughout more death that life but that’s not the point it that Doug seems to stay happy and unlike most kids today he seems to stay happy even without machine and though the death and despair that he sees consistently throughout the novel. Ray Bradbury perfectly portrays the definition of happiness in a young boys eyes by showing how a little bit of imagination some magic and little things in life and make up for anything including death.
Happiness in Douglas Spaulding’s eyes is all of three things imagination, magic, and every last little thing in life because the little things add up and help make a boys imagination and the imagination makes the magic. It begins with the beginning of summer and Douglas makes the town come alive with his otherworldly powers. Turning on the light and beckoning for people to wake up Douglas Spaulding happily usher in the summer of 1928. Next he's in Mr. Sanderson’s shoe emporium Douglas convinces Mr. Sanderson to give him the shoe for a day’s worth of chores around town and Douglas’s speech not only gets him shoes it also sends Mr. Sanderson back to his childhood and when he imagined to run like a gazelle. Douglas needs a new pair of sneakers in order to run through the wilderness and the town simply because there is magic in the sneakers themselves, and this magic is used up by the end of summer. Even though only twelve years old, Douglas has a good understanding of the battle between man/people and nature. Douglas knows that this is a battle that civilization will never win, but he wants to participate in it by running through both town and country. The magic of summer allows him to look though this battleground and explore everything.