A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury examines the idea of time travel and its possible repercussions. The science-fiction story takes place in the year 2055 and centers on a made-up business named Time Safari, Inc. They provide wealthy customers the chance to go back in time and hunt ancient beasts. The plot is about a hunter by the name of Eckels who joins a safari tour led by Travis, a corporate expert.
‘A Sound of Thunder’ was first released in 1952 and has since grown to be one of Bradbury’s most well-known and significant works.
A Sound of Thunder | Summary
As the story opens, Eckels is at Time Safari, Inc., a company that offers safaris to any past year to hunt animals. He meets Mr. Travis, his guide, who warns him to follow instructions or face severe penalties. Eckels sees a futuristic time machine and is intrigued by its power. He expresses his awe at the time machine and reflects on the recent presidential election. He discusses the potential consequences if a different candidate had won. The man behind the desk warns Eckels about the dangers of the safari and emphasizes the need for courage. Eckels is given a release form to sign and is informed that they will be hunting a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Eckels and the other hunters prepare for their journey, putting on oxygen helmets, and discussing the effectiveness of their guns.
The hunters arrive in the past and are given instructions by Travis. They are warned to stay on the designated path and not to disturb or harm any animals without permission. Travis explains the potential consequences of altering the past, using the example of stepping on a mouse and how it can have far-reaching effects on the future. He emphasizes the importance of preserving the natural order and avoiding any changes that could disrupt the course of history. Subsequently, the hunters are informed that the animals to shoot are marked with red paint to ensure they are not disrupting the timeline by killing animals with a future. Lesperance explains how they track the animals and time their arrival to coincide with the natural moment of death. Eckels asks about the success of their own safari, but Travis explains that time travel paradoxes prevent them from meeting their past selves. As they prepare to leave the time machine, they find themselves in a vast prehistoric jungle filled with ancient creatures.
Eckels reflects on the irony of being in a distant past while the events they were concerned about in their own time, such as the presidential election, have not even taken place yet. Travis instructs everyone to take the safety off their guns and assigns the order of shooting. Eckels expresses his nervousness, and Travis signals the presence of the Tyrannosaurus Rex approaching through the mist. As it moves closer, the impact of its presence is felt through the destruction it leaves in its wake. Eckels becomes overwhelmed by fear and expresses his belief that the Tyrannosaurus Rex cannot be killed. He regrets coming on the safari and wants to leave. Travis orders him to turn around and head back to the Time Machine, offering to refund half of his fee. Eckels panics as he sees the red paint on the dinosaur’s chest, indicating that it has spotted them. Eckels, filled with terror, tries to move but is disoriented. Lesperance urges him to hide in the Time Machine, but Eckels is unable to find his bearings. As the dinosaur lunges forward, the hunters open fire.
The hunters manage to kill the Tyrannosaurus Rex and deal with the aftermath of the violent encounter. Travis retrieves cotton gauze from a metal box and instructs the others to clean themselves up. The fallen Tyrannosaurus Rex lies motionless, its organs shutting down and its flesh settling. Lesperance checks his watch and notes that the giant tree that was originally destined to fall and kill the dinosaur has fallen on it at the scheduled time. Lesperance suggests taking a trophy picture as they cannot take the body back to the future, the hunters however refuse. As the hunters return to the Time Machine, they discover that Eckels is still there, shivering. Eckels apologizes, acknowledging his mistake. Travis is furious with Eckels, orders him to go out on the Path alone and states that they will leave him behind. Lesperance tries to intervene, but Travis dismisses him. Desperate to make amends, Eckels offers to pay a significant amount of money, but Travis rejects his offer. Travis demands that Eckels go back outside and place his arms inside the dead Tyrannosaurus Rex’s mouth to retrieve the bullets from its body as he is concerned that leaving the bullets behind in the past could have unintended consequences.
Eckels reluctantly goes back outside to retrieve the bullets from the Tyrannosaurus Rex’s mouth. Afterward, they clean themselves up and change their clothes. They continue their journey through time, with the years passing by as they travel. Finally, the Time Machine stops, and they find themselves back in the present. The room appears the same as they left it. Travis quickly checks if everything is okay, and the man behind the desk assures them that everything is fine.Eckles notices a change in the sign on the office wall of the Time Safari Inc. as he is dumbstruck and realizes the gravity of his actions. He discovers a dead butterfly stuck on his shoes and worries that he could have severe consequences. Eckels asks about the outcome of the presidential election, and he is told that Deutscher won instead of Keith. This revelation confirms that the killing of the butterfly has altered history.
Desperate, Eckels pleads for a chance to undo what has been done. Eckels remains on his knees, waiting and shivering, while Travis prepares to shoot him. The story concludes with a sound of thunder, suggesting that Travis has killed Eckels for his reckless actions.
A Sound of Thunder | Analysis
The genre of science fiction and time traveling provides the scope for the creation of several unique narratives, especially through the trope of time paradoxes. Scholars argue that these paradoxes offer a fantastic debate exercise as well as a forum for logical and philosophical discussion as well as entertainment value. Ray Bradbury’s works mark a turning point in time travel literature, particularly the inclusion of the butterfly effect and the portrayal of time-traveling tourists. Additionally, by concentrating on the effects of time travel, he provided a foundation for future research and development by other writers. His protagonist’s melancholy return to the altered present is unforgettable and serves as a cautionary tale about the frailty of time and the potential risks of time travel.
According to academics, the term ‘magical realism’ hadn’t yet been coined when Ray Bradbury started writing. He was labeled a fantasy novelist because those who wrote about magic, the future, or possibilities were known as science-fiction and fantasy authors and were viewed as genre writers who were unwelcome in literary culture. Chaos theory, often known as the butterfly effect and first defined as sensitive dependence on beginning conditions, is the key axis of comprehending ‘A Sound of Thunder” even though it predates it. In principle terms, the weather can theoretically change throughout the planet if a butterfly flaps its wings in one part of the earth. Regardless of how minor, every cause has an impact. Some of those effects may completely alter our planet’s climate and produce mass extinctions, changing the course of both human and environmental history.
This idea is illustrated in the story by a literal application of the butterfly effect, in which the present chronology is significantly changed when one of the characters unintentionally kills a butterfly millions of years in the past. ‘A Sound of Thunder” takes place after a presidential election in which a moderate candidate defeats a fascist opponent. It recounts the journey of a hunter by the name of Eckels, who goes back 66 million years in pursuit of a thrill that he can’t find in the present. Everything has changed since they arrived in the present, even the election. Now that the fascist is in power, the world has changed. Eckles notices that on the sole of his boot is a crushed butterfly whom he accidentally killed and changes the timeline.
Scholars have also interpreted the narrative of the ‘A Sound of Thunder’ as rooted in the Cold War environment of the twentieth century, according to scholars, and it employs the American literary concept of the ‘Frontier Myth’ to portray this critique. The notion that the independent person could conquer, tame, claim, and own the unending wealth of nature was known as the frontier myth in the context of European settlers arriving in North America. The literature and art of the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries in America reflected this ideology of romanticizing and idealizing the magnificent qualities of nature and the capacity of the rational human being to master it. This concept is demonstrated in ‘A Sound of Thunder’ through the story of Eckels, a man who travels to explore the ‘wild’ of prehistoric times. This is made possible by human control over the boundaries of time and space, which enables technology to be used to manipulate them as desired. The arrogance of asserting that humans can entirely dominate nature through technology, when nature retaliates in the face of such technology, undermines the ‘heroism’ of this exploration, nevertheless.
A Sound of Thunder | Themes
The central theme of the text is an exposition of the Butterfly effect. Massive changes can have minor effects, and small changes can have massive effects. This indicates that even a minor modification can have a significant impact millions of years in the future. For instance, a minor adjustment could have an unpredicted impact on the outcome of a presidential election. The fragility of nature is a related subject. The butterfly is a representation of nature’s delicate equilibrium. The natural order is upset when the butterfly is killed, and a series of disastrous occurrences follow. The narrative emphasizes the significance of protecting and honoring nature.
The story’s characters exhibit a view of themselves as being superior to nature. Eckels makes terrible decisions because he undervalues their significance and doesn’t consider the possible repercussions. The fable serves as a warning on the perils of interfering with nature and human fallibility. Considering this, ‘A Sound of Thunder’ focuses on the potentially hazardous implications that such tampering with nature can have rather than the genius of technology or the mind that produced it. It draws attention to the shortcomings of the rational human intellect, which fails to recognize the warning signs that nature herself offers as ‘thunderous’ wake-up calls for people to be aware of the repercussions of their actions.
Another important theme is the commercialization of time. In the far future, time travel has been created, but it has also been commodified and commercialized. A time-travel safari to the Jurassic period is offered by the business, allowing customers to undertake dinosaur hunting under regulated circumstances. Similar to how The Time Machine wasn’t the first to depict a time machine, ‘A Sound of Thunder’ wasn’t the first to exploit the idea of time travel, but it was the one to popularize it. In science fiction, time travel in this sense amounted to a type of travel. Readers could explore many eras and, in particular, study societal changes thanks to time machines that literally provided temporal mobility. Eckels, the narrative’s main character, sets out on one of these journeys. People needlessly waste time going back and also endanger the present, serving as an example of the commodification of the past, and its use for time travel tourism.
The text can also be interpreted as a critique of technology that, as a result, negatively impacts the social and environmental frontiers. It also serves as Bradbury’s appeal to a civilization that he hopes would ‘dare to be human instead of mechanical.’ Thus, human dehumanization and widespread nature commercialization are prioritized over the preservation of nature and all living things. In such a situation, nature rebels and demonstrates to humans their tiny status and significance within the cosmos, as we are currently experiencing. In this approach, Bradbury makes use of literature to express his concerns about the state of the environment and the harm that people are doing to it.
A Sound of Thunder | Title
The story’s title, ‘A Sound of Thunder,’ has both literal and symbolic connotations that support the narrative’s overarching themes. The literal meaning alludes to the sound Travis’s revolver made at the film’s conclusion when he killed Eckels as a form of retribution for his carelessness. The symbolism is significant because it foreshadows the disruptive and destructive energy that the protagonists will unleash when they change the past. The loud noise becomes a representation of the chaos and results of interfering with time. It serves as a cautionary tale regarding the precarious balance of time and the huge effects of seemingly trivial actions.
A Sound of Thunder | Character Sketch
Eckels: Eckels is a wealthy man who joins a time-traveling hunting excursion in search of excitement and thrill. He comes across as confident and ready to explore the archaic environment at first. Later he behaves like a coward who is terrified in the presence of the animal he was trying to hunt. His negligence and recklessness have negative effects on the plot in significant ways.
Travis: Travis is the time-traveling expedition’s stern and infallible safari leader. He is stern, disciplined, and committed to seeing that the trip’s regulations are upheld. He is frustrated and angered at Eckels’ activities and the consequences they might have, and he also has a violent side that eventually bursts out.
Lesperance: Lesperance is another hunter in the group and stands in stark contrast to Travis and Eckels. He is cool and collected, demonstrates greater empathy and care for Eckels, and makes an effort to step in and avert his punishment.
A Sound of Thunder | Literary Devices
The butterfly serves as a symbol of the fragile balance of nature and the potential ripple effects caused by a seemingly insignificant event. It represents the theme of the butterfly effect, wherein small changes affect things that can’t be controlled or comprehended. The author uses the element of a dead butterfly itself (and its subsequent consequences) to explain this effect.
The story employs foreshadowing, as in the beginning of the plot itself the instability of the future (and of time) is hinted.
Eckles asks,
‘…’Does this safari guarantee I come back alive?’
‘We guarantee nothing,’ said the official…’
The author uses vivid and descriptive language to create imagery throughout the story. For example, there are descriptions of the dinosaur, the jungle, the dead monster, and the butterfly.
‘Eckels glanced across the vast office at a mass and tangle, a snaking and humming of wires and steel boxes, at an aurora that flickered now orange, now silver, now blue.’
‘The jungle was high and the jungle was broad and the jungle was the entire world forever and forever. Sounds like music and sounds like flying tents filled the sky, and those were pterodactyls soaring with cavernous gray wings, gigantic bats of delirium and night fever.’
There is also the use of metaphor and hyperbole in the text’s imagery.
‘And the head itself, a ton of sculptured stone, lifted easily upon the sky. Its mouth gaped, exposing a fence of teeth like daggers.’
‘Its armored flesh glittered like a thousand green coins’
‘Like a stone idol, like a mountain avalanche, Tyrannosaurus fell.’
There is also the use of personification in the text, providing human-like traits to non-human/non-living entities.
‘…moons eat themselves opposite to the custom…’
These literary devices add to the depth and nuance of the story.
