A Sound Of Thunder Analysis

That means all the future families of this one particular mouse are destroyed… And all the families of the families of that one mouse! With a stamp of your foot, you annihilate first one, then a dozen, then a thousand, a million, a billion possible mice… the foxes that'll need those mice to survive? For want of ten mice, a fox dies. For want of ten foxes, a lion starves… Eventually it all boils down to this: fifty-nine million years later, a caveman, one of a dozen on the entire world, goes hunting wild boar or saber-tooth tiger for food. But you, friend, have stepped on all the tigers in that region. By stepping on one single mouse. So the cave man starves… Destroy this one man, and you destroy a race, a people, an entire history of life… The stomp of your foot, on one mouse, could start an earthquake, the effects of which could shake our earth and destinies down through Time, to their very

Think about a piece of gum. Let’s say that you’re done chewing it, so you spit it out on the ground. It’s nothing. Then think about a billion people that do the same thing. Overtime, all those wads of gum suddenly get tossed out and end up in the ocean, and kill about every marine animal you can think of. All of a sudden, you think, and you realize that the one tossed away piece of gum is a big deal, and that it had a large impact on the world. In the short story “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury, Eckels, a hunter, wants to go hunting, except in the past. He goes to Time Safari, Inc., a time travel company, and requests to hunt a dinosaur. He then goes to the past, accompanied by four hunters and confronts the dinosaur. After Eckels chickens out and a long struggle, the dinosaur is defeated. After they return to the present world, Eckels finds out he has killed a butterfly. He asks the official what happened and he then realizes that he has altered the course of history forever. The theme of “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury is that if you’re not careful, small decisions can have very unpredictable outcomes. This can be proven by when Eckels went off of the Path, when Travis explains the rules of the Hunt, and when they reach present time and realize the drastic changes.

Travis, his Safari guide. He shows disrespect when he responds to him on the way to the shooting site, ““So they’re dead,” Said Eckels. “So what?”...”Never step off!” “I see,” said Eckels. “Then it wouldn 't pay for us even to touch the grass?””(Bradbury 226). This clearly demonstrates that Mr. Eckels has no respect for Mr. Travis or the rules and that he isn’t taking this Safari very seriously. Eckels also shows no interest in the rules or regulations when he doesn’t listen to Travis as they watch the T-Rex come into sight when he marvells, “”It can’t be killed.” Eckels pronounced this verdict quietly, as if there would be no argument. He had weighed the evidence and this was his considered opinion. The rifle in his hands seemed a cap gun. “We were fools to come. This is impossible.” “Shut up!” Hissed travis. “Nightmare.” ...”Don’t run...Turn around. Hide in the Machine”...”Yes.” Eckels seemed to be numb. He looked at his feet as if trying to make them move. He gave a grunt of helplessness. “Eckels!” He took a few steps, blinking, shuffling. “Not that way!””(Bradbury 231). This clearly demonstrates how much Mr. Eckels cares about the authority of Mr. Travis; he doesn’t.

Eventually it all boils down to this: fifty-nine million years later, a caveman, one of a dozen on the entire world, goes hunting wild boar or saber-toothed tiger for food. But you, friend, have stepped on all the tigers in that region. By stepping on one single mouse. So the caveman starves. And the caveman, please note, is not just any expendable man, no! He is an entire future nation. From his loins would have sprung ten sons. From their loins one hundred sons, and thus onward to a civilization. Destroy this one man, and you destroy a race, a people, an entire history of life. It is comparable to slaying some of Adam's grandchildren. The stomp of your foot, on one mouse, could start an earthquake, the effects of which could shake our earth and destinies down through Time, to their very foundations. With the death of that one caveman, a billion others yet unborn are throttled in the womb. Perhaps Rome never rises on its seven hills. Perhaps Europe is forever a dark forest, and only Asia waxes healthy and teeming. Step on a mouse and you crush the Pyramids. Step on a mouse and you leave your print, like a Grand Canyon, across Eternity. Queen Elizabeth might never be born, Washington might not cross the Delaware, there might never be a United States at all. So be careful. Stay on the Path. Never step off!" (Bradbury, Ray.)

Rachel Carson is a noted biologist who studies biology, a branch of science addressing living organisms, yet she has written a book called Silent Spring to speak about the harmful effects of pesticides on nature. Carson doesn’t write about birds’ genetic and physical makeup, the role of them in the animal food chain, or even how to identify their unbelievable bird songs, yet strongly attests the fight for a well developed environment containing birds, humans, and insects is just and necessary. To Carson, the war for a natural environment is instantly essential for holding on to her true love for the study of biology. Thus Carson claims that whether it be a direct hit towards birds or an indirect hit towards humans and wildlife, farmers need to understand the effects and abandon the usage of pesticides in order to save the environment by appealing to officials, farmers, and Americans in her 1962 book, Silent Spring. She positions her defense by using rhetorical devices such as rhetorical questioning to establish logos, juxtaposing ideas, and using connotative and denotative diction.

Conservationists have been particularly interested in the restoration of carnivore populations because they have a big impact on the rest of that ecosystem. One example of how carnivore population can cause issues is the decrease of the wolf population in Yellowstone Park. They killed the wolf population thinking it would help, but little did they know they were actually destroying the rest of the ecosystem. Certain ecosystem are like a car; if you remove one piece, then the entire car won’t function correctly. A decrease in carnivore populations means an increase in herbivore populations and then those organisms will use up all the possible resources in that area. That can cause many problems. It shows that the carnivores keep everything together

Imagine a world with a public time machine. No license, no objections. But you will have to know what you going into because whatever you do will have an effect in the world. In the story, The Sound of Thunder, by Ray Bradbury, Eckels, the main character, experienced this message in a very violent way. Although Eckels is brave, curious and courageous beyond measure, he is far from admirable because his selfish and impulsive behaviors made him unaware of his surroundings in ways that drastically harm others and the world around him. Eckels is not a good character in this story because of his bad acts. Ray Bradbury is basically expressing a good idea in a more elaborated version of it. He is saying that all actions have consequences. Eckels

It is commonly acknowledged that, in a biological ecosystem all species are closely affected each other through a food chain. However, what people don’t really recognize is how hugely one species can affect the entire ecosystem. The reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone National Park depicts a vivid example how one predator can contribute to the recovery of biodiversity and its astonishing impact on physical geography.

Millions of years ago, hunting was a way of life, a way of survival. When cavemen killed an animal, they used every single piece of the animal and made certain to let none go to waste. In present day, hunting is viewed as a game. Many people hunt for the enjoyment that the adrenaline rush gives them. In this day and age, people can no longer hunt Saber-Tooth tigers, wooly mammoths, or dinosaurs, but what if there was a way to make that possible? A Sound of Thunder is a futuristic story of hunting prehistoric creatures. They could use a time machine to go back in time and hunt any animal they could dream of. The animals are carefully chosen before the hunt. If someone leaves minute traces of himself, the whole universe changes its course. A

Take Cane toads for example, they were brought to Australia to amend- a sugar eating bug problem, but with no other research done to figure out what they could do, things went wrong. They ate all the other bugs in the farm and multiplied like crazy, having no predators evolved in such a manner to combat the toads poison in this part of the world, it took over and killed many thousands of animals. Even pushing someone towards extinction. Had the scientists in charge done more research or gathered the small amount of toads in the beginning once the project failed, it could have been

"For each of us, as for the robin in Michigan or the Salmon in the Miramachi, this is a problem of ecology, or interrelationships, of interdependence. We poison the caddis flies

People have understood the above risks, and rather than saddling and debilitating natures holds, we have figured out how to safeguard their hereditary data for their long haul survival and our own particular prosperity. One animal groups getting to be wiped out can thump the equalization of a biological community and have a hindering thump on

The term ‘Cobra effect’ comes from an anecdote from colonial India. British, during their reign in India, had observed something peculiar and mysterious in their attempt at solving the growing crisis of increasing Cobra population in the northern part of their colony. The British, in their surge of curbing the increasing population of Cobras, placed a bounty on the heads of cobras to help eradicate them. Initially, their plan worked. Population of cobras declined. However, their happiness was short-lived as the population sky-rocketed, to the utter dismay and astonishment of the Englishmen. Shocking observations of a British General revealed that families were raising broods of cobras in their homes to earn the bounty from their heads and feed themselves from their remaining carcasses. This is an example of a perverse incentive where the incentive for the behaviour actually made the problem worse.

For instance, the wolf population keeps the deer population under control in the temperate and boreal forests of North America. Since the wolves are apex consumers, they influenced the number of their prey and limited the number of smaller predators. Doing this helps increase the abundance of plants or woody productions. Consequences that Estes and his colleagues discussed due to the loss of apex consumers are the emergence of disease, fire, invasive species, and disruption in biochemical dynamics in earth’s soil. An example of a disease emergence, they talked about was the reduction of lions and leopards from the sub-Saharan Africa that led to outbreaks of intestinal parasites in baboons and humans. The loss of large predators led to behavior changes of the baboons, and they had more contact humans’ agriculture production, which resulted in a high rate of intestinal disease. The abundance of invasive species when the apex consumers are absent, the ecosystems are invaded by non-native species. The experimental removal of predatory birds in Hawaii showed an increased in non-native spider population. In a terrestrial ecosystem when apex consumers were absent, and the increased abundance of herbivores can cause the tree recruitment failure and the transformation of the forests into grasslands. This could be seen in many of the United

From the many articles read, analyzed and summarized, some common themes that stroke me as interesting were the effects of natural destruction and manmade destruction to the environment and the attempts of man to now reverse their harm.