The Fun They Had

Tommy is a 13-year-old boy who introduces the story’s inciting conflict, the discovery of the antique book in his attic, and he continues to provide subtle but consistent conflict throughout the story. Although he plays a pivotal role, he is a static character. Margie must navigate Tommy’s moodiness and sense of superiority to keep him from leaving with the book, a threat he makes implicitly when he tells her, “If you don’t like it, you don’t have to read the book” (127). Two years older than Margie, Tommy believes that he knows more than Margie about the world and frequently either says or implies that she is ignorant and “stupid.” His attitude contributes narrative irony to the story when his own assumptions and information are incorrect, such as when he assumes that books must have been disposable after a single reading.

Despite his antagonism, Tommy is also lonely, limited from forming social bonds and friendships with peers for the exact same reason as Margie. He isn’t particularly kind to Margie, but he does seek her out to share the book with her and spends time reading it and discussing it with her. This indicates that he is also motivated by a need for connection and company to alleviate his loneliness. Although he only says “maybe” and walks away “nonchalantly” when Margie asks if they can read again together the next day, the story provides enough evidence to suggest that Tommy is simply more able to disguise his eagerness for connection and his desire to not be alone than Margie.

Margie’s mother, referred to as Mrs. Jones and whom Margie calls “Mamma,” has little direct interaction in the story. She is a flat character. This is a deliberate plot choice, displaying that, even from her own mother, Margie receives little in the way of real human support and connection. Margie recalls that her mother “had shaken her head sorrowfully” (126) after Margie’s repeated failures at geography, indicating that she has expectations for her daughter’s school performance that are not being met. Margie’s mother embodies the lack of approval and understanding that Margie obviously craves.

Margie also recalls that her mother told her that all children had to be taught differently, indicating that she at least appears to believe that education via a mechanical teacher is the best way. This aligns her with the system that Margie finds so frustrating. As the primary authority figure in Margie’s life, this association makes her even less approachable to Margie or willing to listen to her daughter’s frustrations. In this way, she serves to increase Margie’s sense of isolation and alienation in the story. This subversion of a mother’s stereotypical role in fiction as a comforting, nurturing force creates irony.

At the end of the story, Margie’s mother maintains her role as an obstacle to Margie’s search for connection by being the one to end her free time reading with Tommy. This pushes Margie back into the cycle of school and obedience and prevents her from achieving a real resolution beyond a hope for something better.

Margie’s mechanical teacher is a static character. Although devoid of personality and humanistic traits, the mechanical teacher functions as a character. This interpretation is supported by Asimov’s decision to call it a “teacher,” thereby guiding the reader to associate it with a profession held by a human. The mechanical teacher’s inability to accommodate human needs is ironic and aligns with the story’s broader themes. The mechanical teacher is Margie’s main supervisor throughout the school day, a role that would normally be filled by a human being such as a teacher, parent, or other guardian. Reading the mechanical teacher as a character emphasizes technology’s inability to meet a person’s social or emotional needs and develops the theme of The Consequences of Technological Advancement.

As a computer, the mechanical teacher is impersonal and unresponsive. It cannot provide help or support to Margie outside of giving her predetermined lessons and calculating her grades. Its quantitative rigidity is responsible for Margie’s internal conflict about education and learning. Its dominance in her daily life increases her loneliness and lack of connection to other people, including her own mother who, while present in the home, does not participate along with the mechanical teacher in Margie’s education. The story ends with Margie in her schoolroom, the domain of the mechanical teacher which, by its nature, has undergone no change in the story. Even as Margie has undergone a paradigm shift in how she conceives of education and the mechanical teacher, the mechanical teacher is only a machine and delivers the arithmetic lesson as though nothing has changed.