I am wondering about Ray's religious feelings that are exhibited in the Other Foot. Please comment.

rulon_
I would suggest you switch over to RESOURCES
.....and scroll down a bit to postings by Mr. Dark entitled, "Bradbury's religious Views..:". There are 139 posts on Ray's religious views in his life and in his stories... Immerse yourself in all the facts and/or fancy, and you may find your answers and then some...

�The Other Foot� (in The Illustrated Man)
Ray�s religious feelings exhibited in the story. I re-read the story this morning and enjoyed it.

While there are a lot of themes in here, the line between something being religious and something being moral is sometimes pretty fine. It is not the case that all morality comes necessarily from religion, although to deny that the majority of the world�s morality comes from religious teachings and traditions seems a bit of a stretch. Some of the moral themes are in various religious teachings, but they could also be morality developed in a variety of philosophical traditions.

Also, it may be that the �religious� writings may not necessarily reflect Bradbury�s feelings about religion, so much as they may reflect things he wants to say about religion through his fiction � whether they are his views or not.
I�ll use the term religious to include the concept of morality as well. Again, this is not to say that morality could not be developed outside religion, but a recognition that most morality does, in point of fact, come through religious teachings/traditions.

Part of the story depends on an understanding of race relations in America. �The Illustrated Man� was first published (I think) in 1951. In those days, there were still separate drinking fountains, restrooms, seats, schools, churches, etc., in many parts of America. The story mentions that the blacks left earth in 1965 � a time where race relations were still very controversial (�All in the Family� was still not even on television, yet). So there was still very, very strong problems in America with racism.

Also, in 1951, the Korean War had just ended, there was a palpable fear of nuclear war (I still remember the bombing drills in school, where we would run to the wall, crouch down with our heads towards the wall, and cover the back of our necks with our hands).

The story deals with several obvious themes: Remembering, forgiving, beginning anew, vengeance, etc.

When there is anticipation of white men coming in the rocket, all the wonder (in children � �are his hands white?!�) and the anger of the adults (who remember family members shot, lynched, and segregated from the larger community and struck in positions of servility) come to the fore.

Hattie Johnson wants there to be a peaceful reception, but her husband, Willie, gets together the ropes and guns. He organizes the town to paint signs designating �white only� locations. The mayor, Hattie, and about half the town are not comfortable returning hate for hate. Willie, and many others, feel that this is all that is possible.

Part of the theme is in this idea of remembering all the sins and pain and loss. Hattie remonstrates against Willie saying that is not a Christian way to talk. Willie replies that Hattie must not remember the wrongs done. The idea of remembering and hanging on to this hatred is that memory allows this pain to be fomented into the future. In fact, Willie seems to consciously fan the flames of resentment. He is angry when people don�t remember. �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 other.?� Hattie replies that she remembers. �You remember Dr. Phillips and Mr. Burton and their big houses, and my mother�s washing shack, and Dad working when he was old . . .� The theme of remembering sin and wrongs is a significant theme here. As long as we remember the past (in the sense of not being able to move ahead and staying emotionally mired in it) we cannot really move ahead. We foster a climate of hatred.

The mayor, in part of his argument with Willie makes this very point,
�You�re making a mob, Willie Johnson.� �That�s the idea.� �The same thing you always hated when you were a kid. You�re no better than some of those white men you yell about.�

Vengeance and payback are primary themes, also. Several times throughout the story, Willie tosses morality away by saying that the shoe is on the other foot now. The idea of payback seems to undermine the concept of morality. If you�re getting revenge or paying someone back, this sense of retribution and justice overrides the pre-existing sense of what is morally wrong. Willie knows lynchings, killings and segregation are wrong, but because these represent �payback� he sets aside his own morality � vengeance overrules morality.

There is also a sense, as the story ends, and Willie is finally able to let go of his anger because his memories � because of the complete destruction of the �place� of these travesties � become less real and vital. Payback has already occurred. The places where these horrible things occurred have been burned into non-existence. The vengeance has already taken place. If the white man has been destroyed, and is volunteering to come be servants, and has lost his racial pride, then the morality we assume exists for Willie begins to reassert itself. The whites are now on an even keel:

�Yes . . . 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. I knew that when he talked. I knew then that 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.�

I think an interesting thing is that Willie is swayed by two things: One is the speech the man gave, where he talked about the loss and willingness to come as servants and submit to whatever treatment the blacks deem fair. The other is in the pictures. The places where these crimes had occurred were all gone. But Willie (and others, we presume) needed the photographs to really make that emotionally real for them.

�Everything�s gone. Here are the pictures, you can see for yourself�. The pictures were there to be held and looked at and thought about. The rocket was full of pictures and answers to questions.�

The combination of the story/speech (something abstract) and the pictures (something concrete) is what made Willie let go of his hatred and want to start something new and something even. It was time to stop being fools.