Analysis Of A Sound Of Thunder

Stephen Covey once said, “We are free to choose our actions, . . . but we are not free to choose the consequences of these actions.” Stephen Richards Covey was an American educator, author, businessman, and keynote speaker. His most popular book is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Covey states that we have the right to make our own choices, but it is our responsibility to face the consequences. In many stories, characters make choices, that impact their lives and then have to accept the outcome, whatever it may be. One of the themes that Ray Bradbury explores in the short story, A Sounder of Thunder is that all actions have consequences, big and

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.

Right after Simon reaches the shelter, he squats down and looks at the clearing; where he realizes that “nothing moved but a pair of gaudy butterflies that danced round each other” (58). The quiet ambience is further reinforced with the words “nothing moved”, as it connotes a level of silence and calmness. Even the diction of the word “butterflies” adds a positive connotation to the image as One can also see visual imagery in this part of the passage. The reader can visually imagine the beauty of the butterflies fluttering and “dancing” in the scenery while nothing else moves. This imagery, along with the diction helps the reader picture a very peaceful and placid place. Later in the passage, as the Sun starts to set and darkness begins to pour out in the sky, the “candle-buds opened their wide white flowers glimmering under the light that pricked down from the first stars” (59). Positive diction is also used here. The word “white” further represents this sense of peace and also purity of the

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,

“No, it can’t be. Not a little thing like that. No!” Embedded in the mud, glistening green and gold and black, was a butterfly, very beautiful and very dead. “Not a little thing like that! Not a butterfly!” cried Eckels. “It fell to the floor, an exquisite thing, a small thing that could upset balances and knock down a line of small dominoes and then big dominoes and then gigantic dominoes, all down the years across Time.” (pg299). This quote describes the conflict that is happening and as you’re reading you can tell this is the turning point in the story. During a safari in the past, Eckels was supposed to shoot a dinosaur, yet he got scared and ran off the path. He stepped on a butterfly. This action changed the past, present, and the future of the world.

Allan Grant, the main protagonist in the book, is hired by Hammond to prepare them for the dangerous life in Jurassic park. When the computer that controls the cloning of the dinosaurs crashes without anyone in the park knowing about it, the dinosaurs were accidently set free. Hammond then invites his family and friends to see what he has been building for many years. When the dinosaurs attacked them they were in shock because the lizards have previously killed the babies living in Costa Rica. When Grant finds out about this attack, he frantically heard about it and immediate runs and tries to help and save everyone. Grant is a scientist who knows everything there is to be known about the history of dinosaurs. The dinosaurs got loose when he starts to invest millions of dollars and many years into the project of cloning these manifested dinosaurs. His love of ancient creatures seems sincere to many people that met Hammond for the first time because he used his determination to turn his ideas to a major profit. He let greed take over life. Later in the book when Hammond claims to have created dinosaurs for children of the world but he states that only the rich could come to the park. All

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

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.

An important theme in “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury is minor decisions we make can have lasting and unpredictable consequences. This theme is proven when Travis explains the butterfly effect, Travis falls off the path and when the hunters come back to the the present time and they realize that they have changed the world drastically.

Butterflies are often used to reveal big ideas. As an example, Simon description of said wildlife changes throughout the novel following changes in his personal life. Butterflies go from “returning to their roots,”(58) to “deserting the open space.”(151). The opposing ways that butterflies are mentioned creates the idea that they symbolize Simon no longer conforming to the group’s idea of a submissive follower. Simon is instead having revelations of his own and choosing to follow a different path. Simon being comfortable in his own skin and aware that you know what’s best for yourself shows a maturity he previously lacked. In the same manner Jack provides an image of butterflies being too preoccupied in the clearing to stop dancing.(149). The authors word choice develops the idea of Jacks savagery because it is eerily similar to the phrase associated with characters killing. Yet again the butterflies represents Jack. It seems to reveal how Jack is to focused on the pleasure he gets from taking a life to feel any remorse and stop. Remorse is necessary to prove a person still has trace amounts of good in them. recognizing the

Jurassic Park is a science fiction novel written by Michael Crichton which was published in 1990. The book follows a mysterious island that is inhabited by genetically engineered dinosaurs created by a bioengineering firm. The story lets us watch as visitors land on the island at the request of the rich billionaire who owns the island and the bioengineering firm, which is named InGen to revel in the wonder that they have created. We follow all the miss-steps until all is lost and the island has to be destroyed. The novel is one to give us insight into what can happen when we try to play god and foreshadows what possibly could go wrong by taking that next step into genetics that could be considered reckless and dangerous. Crichton lets us

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

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton demonstrated many dinosaur characteristics and behaviors. The dinosaurs were fictionally characterized to appeal to the readers. By examining the dinosaur’s appearance and behaviors of dinosaurs such as the duckbilled dinosaur, velociraptor, hypsilophodontids, dilophosaurs, Triceratops, apatosaurs, Tyrannosaurus rex, stegosaurs, and maiasaurs distinguished whether the evidence existed in the field of paleontology. The behaviors and characteristics of the dinosaur are divided into three factors as behaviors that were supported, not supported, and no evidence to support or refute the behavior.