Analysis Of A Sound Of Thunder By Ray Bradbury

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.

Ray Bradbury is an amazing author and has his own distinct way of writing, but he always discovers a way to make his stories similar in some way. Bradbury is an American author who has won many awards. There are three stories in particular he has written, “A Sound Of Thunder”, “The Veldt”, and “The Pedestrian”. He puts the same writing technique in all of his stories, imagery. Bradbury uses imagery to grab the reader's attention by giving amazing detail and explanation on certain parts of his stories, to create an amazing picture which makes it easier to visualize.

A Sound of Thunder is a short story written by Ray Bradbury which belongs to the genre of science fiction. The story set in A.D.2055 when time travel is possible, this is the story of a travel agency, Time Safari Inc., that arrangeed hunting trips back in time to hunt dinosaurs. It is also a futuristic story about how changing a small thing can result in a huge change somewhere down the timeline. In this case, a nervous hunter, Eckels, stepped off the trail, and stepped on a butterfly. The historical repercussions of the death of a single butterfly, compounded by millions of years of effects.

“We’re here to give you the severest thrill a real hunter ever asked for. Travelling you back sixty million years to bag the biggest game in all of Time”(Bradbury 224). The thought of travelling back in time just to shoot a prehistoric beast of the Past is just that; a thought. People now can’t even imagine what it would be like to look a ferocious dinosaur in the eyes, but it may happen one day in the Future. Ray Bradbury paints this picture for us in his incredible story about this unbelievable mystery with figurative language and personification. “A Sound of Thunder” follows a big game hunter, Mr. Eckels, through a Time Safari of the Future and how he completely changes the world around him by disregarding the dangers of Time Travel,

In the short story A Sound of Thunder Ray Bradbury, many metaphors and similes are used to describe the T. Rex as an evil, giant being, who is impossible to defeat. Of course, towards the end of the story, the giant, evil, green, massive dinosaur is shot, and tree falls upon it for good measure. In the story, Eckels pays a whopping ten thousand dollars to shoot a T. Rex in 60 million years in the past. He is given a safari guide, and they set off to the Jurassic. While they are getting there through the time machine, Travis, the safari guide, tells Eckels about all the rules and precautions, so they don’t change the past. When they finally arrive, there is a metal path laid out in front of them, six inches above the ground, so they don’t contaminate the soil. The group starts walking to the T. Rex. When Eckels sees the T. Rex, the author stars describing how massive and scary it is. Eckels even gives a hyperbole for how tall the massive creature is. Eckels panics and accidentally steps off the path, killing a butterfly unknowingly. When they get back, Travis is furious for Eckels’ misstep, but Eckels tells him it’s fine. Eckels is horrified to discover that the president that was elected last time, was replaced by a dictator-like person. Travis later kills Eckels because everything is messed up. Ray Bradbury uses the T. Rex to symbolize chaos.

In the short story “A Sound of Thunder” Ray Bradbury tells the story about Eckles, a man wanting to time travel back to the Mesozoic Era, the age of the dinosaurs. He wants to hunt the gigantic Tyrannosaurus Rex. Throughout the story Ray Bradbury uses imagery to broaden the plot and divulge the theme. The imagery helps set up all the intricate details our author deems important.The author provides us with enough imagery to develop the characters and foreshadow the plot.

Ever wonder what’s going to happen next in a story? Suspense is that literary element and it’s used in almost all cases of writing. Some authors use a lot of it to build up their stories, others, not so much. Ray Bradbury, an American author and screenwriter was one of those authors who used suspense to build up the tension and develop the plot of his stories. From beginning to end, genre to genre, suspense can be found all over his work. “A Sound of Thunder”, “The Veldt”, and “The Pedestrian” are just three examples of Bradbury’s work where he uses suspense all over the text to keep the reader on the edge of their seat and wondering what’s going to happen next.

Moreover, the story follows a hunter named Eckels, living in the year 2055, and who pays $10,000 to travel back to the Jurassic era to hunt a Tyrannosaurus rex. Throughout the story, Eckels is ordered by his guides to stay off the path, and is countlessly emphasized to not “touch so much as one grass blade, flower, or tree” (P. 37). This demonstrates that even though Eckels is clearly warned by his guides that he must take care not to disturb too much of history to avoid setting off a cataclysmic chain of alterations, Eckels does not abide this advice. In addition, as pointed out by one guide – Travis – he informs him of the consequences, warning him that if Eckels did indeed stray off the path, he could potentially “kill an important animal, a small bird, a roach, a flower even, thus destroying an important link in a growing species: (P. 37). Subsequently, terrified by the appearing dinosaur, Eckels stumbles off the path and “not looking back, walked blindly to the edge of the path” (P. 41). In doing so, Eckels inadvertently makes a terrible mistake: he steps on a butterfly, and kills it, ignorant to his error and all the warnings he had previously received. Regarding this, it is

Ray Bradbury was born in 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois. When he was fourteen years of age he and his family relocated to Los Angeles, California. (Funk & Wagnalls) Unfortunenately I was not able to find the specific reason to why the Bradbury family relocated to Los Angeles. I do know that however Ray himself was not complaining. According to one of my sources Ray himself was “star struck” upon arrival in the city. (Funk & Wagnalls) It was while in Los Angeles that Bradbury started to write short stories. Bradbury reportedly drew most of his inspiration from reading comic strips in newspapers, magazines, and sorcery. (Funk & Wagnalls) Following his high school graduation in 1943 Bradbury became a full time writer. (Funk & Wagnalls) So throughout this paper I will talk about Bradburys beginnings, how he found success, criticism about his other works, and lastly further analyzation over his story A Sound of Thunder.

Ever thought about technology destroying the world? Everything getting too advanced? Repetition and personification is used to convey the idea that technology has the power to destroy us. In “Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury, repetition is used to show a dangerous situation. In “There will come Soft Rains” by Ray Bradbury, repetition is used to show the importance of something while personification is used to show something that is fearless and will not give up. Technology has the power to destroy us in both of these stories.

Ray Bradbury is an author used to writing against the norm. Many of his literary works are written in such a way to make the reader think, such as his most famous work Fahrenheit 451, which was a book whose imagery was created entirely by the reader’s perspective. Bradbury (1994) switches up the literary device with ‘A Sound of Thunder’. A Sound of Thunder focuses on three men on a hunting expedition through a time machine, hoping to hunt a T-Rex and proclaim themselves true big game hunters of time. The Expedition goes awry, and one man, Eckels, panics and runs back to the time machine. In the process of his flight, he tramples a butterfly. The other men shoot and kill the dinosaur, and Eckels is sent back to retrieve the bullets from its corpse. The hunting guide learns of Eckels’ misstep, and upon returning to the present, they realize Eckels changed it all for the worse. The expedition ends in a sound of thunder, the fate of Eckels unknown, but assumed. Bradbury uses imagery and diction masterfully in this short story, but a very large focus throughout the story is foreshadowing. Foreshadowing, or the alluding to of events that will eventually take place in the story, remains a centerpiece in Bradbury’s work. How does Bradbury use foreshadowing to bring about a perspective change in the reader?

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

There is themes which is the central idea of a story and then there is universal themes. A universal theme is an idea primarily about an aspect of human life that umbrellas several other stories. Universal themes can be identified through literary devices such as symbolism, metaphors, foreshadowing, and . The stories that will be focused on to recognize universal themes are “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury and “The Interlopers” by Saki. “A Sound of Thunder” is a science fiction short story where a man with the name of Eckels hires a time travel company so he can go back and kill dinosaurs. “The Interlopers” is a suspenseful short story that mainly centers on the plot in which two men who call themselves Georg and Ulrich are destined to kill each other since their past generations hated each other. Both stories main themes are completely different however, they both show multiple universal themes. The universal themes in “The Interlopers” and “A Sound of Thunder” represented by literary devices are all events and actions are important and everyone has limits.

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 was 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 showed that by not thinking before acting and not trusting his power or instincts.

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