Themes and message

The short story “The Highest Branch on the Tree” by Ray Bradbury explores the theme of bullying and its consequences and ambition. This theme is enhanced by motifs like guilt and deceit. The narrator lives all his life with the guilt of having been a bully and of potentially destroying Harry’s life only to find out 40 years later that Harry is a successful business man.

The writer’s message is that an event can take on a different perspective depending on how you look at it, and …

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Bullying and its consequences

This topic is explored through plot and characters, looking at both the perspective of the bully and the bullied.

The story is told by narrator Douglas who bullied his high school classmate Harry, including by throwing his pats into a tree. Following this event, Harry never returned to high school.  The story shows how one of the causes of bullying in school can be envy: “Harry Hand…

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Ambition

Another important theme in the short story is that of ambition which is mostly illustrated through Harry’s character.

As opposed to his high school classmates, including the narrator, Harry was an ambitious student. It is indicated by the fact that he always had his hand up at teachers’ question, read a lot, and also did boxing (ll. 60-71). Furthermore, teenage Harry was even willing to cheat to be the first one in class as indicated by his confession years later about cheating in gym class: “ ‘ I never ran the laps. After the first two I hid behind a parked car…’ ” (ll. 167-168)

Being determined also helped Ha…