Small Cause, Big Effect In Ray Bradbury's A Sound Of Thunder

In Ray Bradbury’s short story “There Will Come Soft Rains,” the author reminds the reader how the technology advancement can be wondrous yet dangerous. He shows the world in the 2026, how it’s going to go on without the life of humans. As technology has been misused, it became the ultimate destruction of humans. People depended too much on technology and had faith to it.

Through the use of stylistic devices and character, Bradbury conveys his theme of the destructiveness of technology. He shows the reader that if technology reaches a point where it is doing daily chores and simple tasks for society, then we

“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,

Many science fiction shows, films, and novels today have been influenced by science fiction novels from the past. A few examples are Frequency,The Butterfly Effect, and A Sound of Thunder relating to A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury. These films all express Bradbury’s idea of the butterfly effect and that time traveling can change the past, therefore changing the future. Although they share the same idea, they each have different outcomes.

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.

The humans in these stories also depend so much on technology that they have been replaced by it. Technology’s

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.

Here readers can see how Bradbury feared that people might begin to form close relationships with technology, “The house stood alone in a city of rubble and ashes. This was the one house left standing. At night the ruined city gave off a radioactive glow which could be seen for miles.”. This shows readers how perhaps Bradbury wanted to prove that just because you love your phone or tablet, that does not automatically mean that the phone or tablet feels the same about you. Finally a final problem Bradbury predicts might happen is visible in "A sound of thunder”. In this story readers can see how Bradbury fears that we, as humans, will not be able to see the possible damage we are causing through our technological advancements. While he illustrated this through time travel, readers can apply the same concept to modern technological advancements that impact society and/or the environment. All in all, Bradbury sees multiple technology based problems that we should be aware of and try our utmost to prevent from becoming a

That changing one little thing in the past will have a major outcome on the future. I personally do not believe in the butterfly effect because in my opinion it will take a lot more than killing a little butterfly in the past to make a dramatic change to the future. I do believe that if time travel were possible nothing should be brought back, if it is in the past it should stay there. But Bradbury does make interesting points on how he views time travel what if it was real, should it be allowed, could it make significant changes? It sounds like it could do more harm than good, which is quite

If he is brave enough to do what he signed up for, kill the dinosaur, there would not have been such a big problem in the whole story. He wouldn’t have stepped off the path, drastically change the future and not get killed at the end. “‘It can’t be killed.’ Eckels pronounced this verdict quietly as if there could 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.’” (Bradbury 77) Thinking it is “impossible” made just Eckels afraid of the dinosaur. Eckels is never even ready for this, unlike the other hunters who went on this trip. Even though he is a professional hunter, Eckels is too afraid to fight the beast because of its look. Eckels is suffering because he did not pay any attention to his surroundings. “‘Why, why,’ Eckels twitched his mouth. ‘It could reach up and grab the moon.’” (Bradbury 77) Eckels is not even ready to go near the dinosaur because of the amazing size, the look of it, and the thought that “it could reach up and grab the moon.” He did not want to kill it because it is too overpowered. But he didn’t think about the others. If he thought about the others, he would have waited for Lesperance and Travis to tell them what to do because they were very experienced in what everyone is doing right now.

In the anecdote by Ray Bradbury “A Sound of Thunder” the author writes a story about the butterfly effect. In which he shows a future generation in which time travel is possible. Hunting enthusiasts can go to the past and hunt a T-Rex. Harrison writes how the trip goes wrong and the main character Eckels ends up killing a butterfly which changes the face of Earth. The writer explains that everything will have a consequence even if it is a million years later.

Science fiction is a type of genre that has to do with stories set in the future and technology that is more advanced than our society today. Ray Bradbury is the prominent author of “The Sound of Thunder”, and “The Pedestrian”. In 1953, he wrote the well-known science fiction novel Fahrenheit 451 which is one of Bradbury’s most famous works. “The Pedestrian" sets place in the year 2053 where a man named Leonard Mead goes on walks alone. Whenever Leonard goes on his walks, he never sees anyone else outside because everyone’s too busy watching TV. In “ The Sound of Thunder” a hunter named Eckels goes to a time machine company that has hunters go back in time to hunt dinosaurs. In “The Pedestrian” and “The Sound of Thunder” there are similar and different aspects of the two stories like the intriguing characters, principles of science, and their futuristic settings.

Having spent one’s entire childhood through war and bombings can inspire many ideas, both positive and negative. From the fear of a nuclear bomb to the proud feeling of witnessing the first American man on the moon, Ray Bradbury took his experiences during World War II and the International Space Race and transformed them into literary pieces, such as “There Will Come Soft Rains”, “The Sound of Thunder”, and “The Pedestrian”. In these short stories, Bradbury includes elements of his own life into the plot, creating a message of caution to the readers through his riveting genre of dystopia. Some topics he stresses include time, technology, and its possible threats to human interaction. Through Bradbury’s unique style, he encapsulates the major issue of the rapid development in society and how it affects people in a social aspect. As new technology and science is innovated, there are many people who debate whether or not it can have harmful side effects to mankind. Among these three short stories, Bradbury uses the stylistic techniques of diction, imagery, and figurative language to convey that as society progresses through time, people lose their sense of humanity.

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

It tells us that technology sometimes is dangerous and vital if we cannot gain power over it.