In adolescence, life can seem like a popularity contest. Therefore, teasing, bullying, and victimization are among the biggest problems for teenagers in school. For the most part the victims develop social and emotional problems, and as a result, limit their happiness and success. However, in the American short story "The Highest Branch on the Tree," author Ray Bradbury tells a rather different and amusing story about victimization. In Bradbury's story, the victim gets his revenge, and is the one who has the last laugh. Instead of becoming a withdrawn person, he becomes successful in the business world. However, he is still suffering from the bullying in his past. Or perhaps the bullies are the ones who are suffering as a result of the past.
             The victim and the main character, Harry Hands, is a very bigheaded and smart person, who was vastly superior to his classmates. Thus, everyone in his class disliked him, especially because of his infuriating arrogant attitude and success. However, Harry did not care at all, since the teachers liked him, and therefore he knew that he had nothing to fear. In fact, he was indeed aware of the fact that he was the one who had the upper hand, which this paragraph clearly states: "looking down his nose at us dumb peasants, as he called us." (Line 5-6). Peasant is a humiliating word, which in former times was used about a person who is from the lowest part of society.
             Nevertheless, Harry was a victim of bullying and teasing throughout his short period in junior high. Even forty years later, Harry does not live a single day without remembering the day the envious narrator of the story, Douglas Spaulding, together with the other classmates, threw Harry's pants up on the highest branch of a tree in the schoolyard. He was victimized, and victimization is one the main themes in Bradbury's story. However, Harry simply climbed up and thereafter peed on everyone be...