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The Sound of Thunder | Ray Bradbury | Summary | Neb English Support
A Sound of Thunder
ABOUT THE STORY
A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury
This short story "A Sound of Thunder" is a science fiction that was written by American writer Ray Bradbury. This story was first published in Collier's magazine on June 28, 1952. It was later published in Bradbury's collection "The Golden Apples of the Sun" in 1953. This story is about a man named Eckels who joined a hunting expedition in the past. In this quest to kill dinosaurs for sport, Eckles steps on a butterfly, causing the future to change dramatically. This story explores the main ideas of how small actions can have massive consequences and the dangers of misusing technology.
MAIN SUMMARY
A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury
This story "A Sound of Thunder" begins sometime in the future, around (or after) 2055. Time Safari Inc., a time-travel safari company in the United States, allows all the animal hunters to travel back in time with the help of Time Machine and kill a long-extinct animal such as dinosaurs. A man named Eckels gets ready to go on his safari.
We learn that the US presidential election has just taken place, and everyone is quite relieved with the news that 'Keith' won, not his rival Deutscher, an anti-intellectual who would have turned America into a dictatorship.
Eckels is so curious, asking his safari guide, Travis, about how safari works. Travis tells him and his fellow hunters - his assistant, Lesperance, along with two others travelling back - to stay on the path and shoot to kill only where he tells them to shoot. Arriving sixty million years ago, they will shoot and kill a Tyrannosaurus rex.
This dinosaur was specially selected and marked with red paint by Lesperance earlier that day, so they make sure that they kill the right animal and nothing else. The Tyrannosaurus rex originally targeted for hunting would have died after a few minutes in any case, so they know that, by killing it, they are not interfering with the past.
Travis is very firm when emphasising the importance of following instructions to ensure they do not interfere with the past. The government of the US doesn't like them travelling back in time, so Time Safari Inc. has to pay them a lot of money to keep them happy and take all kinds of precautions. When Travis tells them that going so far in the past and even killing a mouse can change the future - and their present from where they have travelled - it can change in all kinds of ways.
This is because, especially over such a long period of time, little things also add up. That dead mouse, if it had been alive, would have produced a whole family of mice, each of which would have produced its own family, and so on. Millions of potential rats would never have existed if one of them had walked upon it in the distant past.
Foxes that depend on rats for food will be exterminated. Lions that hunt foxes will die of hunger. And eventually, when the early cavemen evolved, they too would have starved to death, and thus an entire nation, raised by that one person, would never have existed.
Eckels rejects the idea that such small changes in the past could have such large effects. When they reach the past and see a Tyrannosaurus rex targeted for its prey, it is such a fearsome and majestic animal that Eckles becomes frightened and claims that they will be unable to kill it. In panic, he forgets the specifically designated path he has been instructed to stay on and steps into the forest.
The others shoot and kill the dinosaur, while Travis, angry at Eckles, tells him to go into the time machine and wait. As punishment for violating his instructions and walking into the woods, Travis tells Eckles to go and take the bullets out of the dead animal's mouth. They then return to their present world, with Travis confused about whether to kill Eckles for disobeying his orders and getting the safari company into trouble.
However, upon their arrival, they discover that things are subtly different. Both the front desk of the safari company and the man sitting behind it are a little different from before. There are chemical stains in the air. And the spelling on the safari company's signs has changed, which means the English language is different too. They also learn from the man at the front desk that Deutscher, rather than Keith, won the election and has turned the United States into a fascist state.
While examining the mud on his shoes, Eckels found a dead butterfly. Killing insects has caused these terrible changes over time. Travis raises his gun and finally shoots Eckles.
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