A Sound of Thunder Analysis
By Allyson, Alex, Bo, Denver and Lennon
Story Summary
“A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury is an intense story that has future technology giving the characters a look at the Cretaceous age. He hops out of the machine knowing he is in the past and walks forward with the other group members waiting for a dinosaur to kill. They wait but not for long as a Tyrannosaurus Rex comes elegantly out of the wooded area. They notice this and everyone but Eckels was ready to kill this majestic beast.They fired bullet after bullet with the rex fighting back but after many rounds of bullets the Rex falls. In anger, the director Yelps at Eckels for putting them in danger and for walking the path but calmed down so they could travel back into the present time. Many things were changed like the sign on the door and the man behind the desk and in amazement he realizes that he has experienced the butterfly effect from stepping off the path from the past.
Point of View
Point of View includes the author's position and the narrator's perspective.
Author’s Position - The author's position is the way that the author feels about the message of their story.
In the story “A Sound of Thunder” the author has taken the following positions:
The smallest of actions can have very great effects.
History is very significant, and should be greatly respected.
Both of these positions of the author are shown by how when simply one butterfly dies the future is changed. Even the smallest elements of history have an effect on how events will unfold for years to come.
Narrator’s Perspective - The narrator’s perspective is from whom the story is being told.
First Person - A first person story is narrated by a character (includes I, me, etc)
Third person - A third person perspective is narrated by no characters (No I, me, etc)
The story “A Sound of Thunder” is narrated in a third-person perspective because the narrator never refers to himself as one of the characters. Outside of dialogue the words such as "I," "we" and "our" were never used. Along with this, the narration is in limited third person. What that means is that the narrator speaks the inner thoughts of only one character. This character being Eckels.
Theme
Our group has identified 3 central themes in the story.
Theme 1 - Butterfly effect- something little makes a big impact. The group went through the time machine to the past to kill a T-rex. But Eckels ended up screwing up and he alerted the dinosaur. So Eckels started running while everyone else was defending themselves and Eckels went off the path and killed a butterfly. Once they went back into the present Eckels realized his mistake after everything was spelled wrong, new president, and different people
Theme 2 - History is an extremely important element on how if we change something in the past future features of the world can change. He stepped on the butterfly so everything is spelled wrong. The fact that he stepped on a butterfly and all the words in the world were spelled differently, a different president got elected, and different people got hired for a job. That one killing of just one butterfly changed a whole lot in the future.
Theme 3 - Don’t underestimate your ability to impact the future and even the world. Again just one person going on a safari changed how words are spelled. He probably didn't know this was going to happen. He just thought that he would kill the dinosaur and get out fine with history not changing. But he had to pay for it and eventually got killed.
Author's Purpose
Our Final Take Away
In order for you to have a positive effect on the world, you must make changes in the present for a better future, not vice versa, making changes in the past for a better present. This is clearly true regarding time travel, but it is also a good lesson for life. You can’t change the past so there is no need to dwell on it, but you can ensure that you understand it in order to prevent harmful history from repeating itself. Simply be cautious; think before you act and always remember that even the smallest of things is significant and will have an impact on our world.
Image Sources
Scary for Kids! "A Sound Of Thunder." Scary Website. Scary for Kids!, 9 Aug. 2007. Web. 04 Dec. 2015.
Image Source: Jacobs, Bonnie. "The Butterfly Effect." Blogger. N.p., 16 May 2011. Web. 3 Dec. 2015.