A SOUND OF THUNDER

Ray Bradbury, USA (1920-2012)

• "A Sound of Thunder" is a science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury. The story is about a man named Eckels who is a passionate hunter. Eckels travels back in time to kill a dinosaur but his actions alter the balance of nature and he changes the future. The author uses a series of unique describing techniques, which make this story full of surprises. 
• Ray Bradbury presents the fact of how the small act of human beings at present can change the future drastically. 
• The story is set in 2055. A hunter named Eckels goes on an adventure travelling back into the past on a safari to kill a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
• As they wait to depart, they talk about the recent presidential elections, in which an apparently fascist candidate, Deutscher, has just been defeated by the more moderate Keith, to the relief of many people.
• After the party arrives in the past, Travis (the hunting guide) and Lesperance (Travis's assistant) warn Eckels and the two other hunters, Billings and Kramer, about the necessity of minimizing their effect on events when they go back since tiny alterations to the distant past could snowball into catastrophic changes in history. The hunters must stay on a path to avoid disrupting the environment and only kill animals which were going to naturally die at the same time.
• Despite his earlier eagerness to begin the hunt, Eckels loses his nerve at the sight of the T Rex. Travis tells him he cannot leave, but Eckels panics and veers (Turn sharply; changes direction abruptly) off the path. The two guides kill the dinosaur.
• Upon returning to the present, Eckels notices subtle changes. English words are now spelt strangely, people act differently, and, worst of all, Deutscher has won the election instead of Keith. Looking through the mud on his boots, Eckels finds a crushed butterfly, whose death was apparently the cause of the changes. He pleads to Travis to take him back into the past to undo the damage, but Travis refuses and fires his rifle. It is left untold what he shoots, although it is presumed that he kills Eckels.
• The author tries to describe nature as a delicate and very sensitive thing and he means to say "don't mess with nature and don't break the balance in time". So the author requests us to use natural resources properly and wisely so that our exploitation of nature doesn't create destruction in the future. 
• The writer's main concern over nature in "A Sound of Thunder" is the way humans are misusing natural resources will surely lead to drastic devastation in the near future so to avoid this, we should learn to properly mobilize these resources.

SUMMARY:

The story A Sound of Thunder, by Ray Bradbury, opens when a man named Eckels enters the offices of Time Safari, Inc., a company that offers safaris that take hunters to any time in the past to hunt any animals they wish to shoot. Eckels presents a check for $10,000 to the clerk and asks if the company guarantees that hunters return alive from the past. The clerk replies that the company guarantees nothing but encounters with dinosaurs. Hunters must strictly obey their guides, shooting only what and when they are instructed to shoot. Any disobedience will result in a $10,000 fine plus possible government-imposed penalties.

Eckels contemplates (STUDIES/observe deep in thought) the nearby time machine and remarks that if Keith, the progressive candidate he favoured in yesterday’s presidential election, had lost the contest, Eckels might be in the office now, trying to go to some other time to escape the outcome. The clerk agrees that it would indeed have been awful if Deutscher, Keith’s opponent, had been elected. The two men quickly return, however, to discussing the opportunity Eckels will have to shoot a Tyrannosaurus Rex. The clerk warns that if Eckels is attacked and eaten by a dinosaur, the company is not liable. Six safari guides died last year, along with twice as many hunters. The clerk wants Eckels to be sure that he really wants to make the trip.

Eckels indicates that he does, and so he is introduced to Mr. Travis, the experienced guide who will lead this safari. Travis and Eckels, carrying rifles, enter the time machine, which is already occupied by Travis’s assistant, Lesperance, and two other hunters (Billings and Kramer). The machine kicks into operation and the nights, days, weeks, months, years, centuries, and millennium whiz (the motor whizzed-Make a soft swishing sound) by. Leaving A.D. 2055, the men soon arrive in the midst (thick) of a jungle that existed 60,002,055 years before.

As they look out of the time machine, Travis points out a metal path into the jungle. Made of anti-gravity metal, it hovers (the GURU claimed that he could hover-Be suspended in the air, as if in defiance of gravity) half a foot above the ground. It was placed there by the company to prevent hunters from in any way having physical contact with the jungle. Travis emphatically instructs them that they are never to leave the path, for any reason. He insists that the men pay careful attention to this rule and never violate it. They are not to touch anything, and they are not to shoot at any animals unless Travis approves. When Eckels asks why, Travis elaborately explains that the company does not want to take any chances by changing anything at all about the future. Destroying even a flower, an insect, a mouse, or any other living thing could cause potentially massive unforeseen (Not anticipated) consequences in the future. This is especially the case since killing one living thing in the jungle would mean wiping out the potential offspring of that thing, and thus the offspring's offspring, and so on and on and on for countless generations. The hunters must stay on a path to avoid disrupting the environment and only kill animals which were going to naturally die at the same time.

Despite his earlier eagerness to begin the hunt, Eckels loses his nerve at the sight of the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Travis tells him he cannot leave, but Eckels panics and veers (moved) off the path. The two guides kill the dinosaur, and shortly afterward, the tree that would have killed the dinosaur in the absence of human intervention falls on the corpse. Travis' elation (high spirits/A feeling of joy and pride) quickly changes to fury when they find Eckels and see his muddy boots, which prove he went off the path. Travis threatens to leave Eckels in the past unless Eckels removes the bullets from the dinosaur’s body, as they cannot be left behind.

Upon returning to the present, Eckels notices subtle changes. English words are now spelled strangely, people and buildings are different and, worst of all, Deutscher has won the election instead of Keith. Looking through the mud on his boots, Eckels finds a crushed butterfly, whose death was apparently the cause of the changes. He pleads to Travis to take him back into the past to undo the damage, but Travis refuses and fires his rifle. It is left untold what he shoots, although it is presumed that he kills Eckels. The dark ending reveals that the title not only refers to the "sound of thunder" made by the Tyrannosaurus-Rex —the story’s final words are, “There was a sound of thunder.”

The climax of the story involves the return of the hunting party to the office of Time Safari Inc. which still oddly enough still exists, but the language has evolved differently.

But the immediate thing was the sign painted on the office wall, the same sign he had read earlier today on first entering. Somehow, the sign had changed:

TYME SEFARI INC.

SEFARIS TU ANY YEER EN THE PAST.

YU NAIM THE ANIMALL.

WEE TAEK YU THAIR.

YU SHOOT ITT.

The ending suggests that while the players remain the same, namely the presidential candidates Keith and Deutscher, their environment and the evolution of the human language have been influenced.

It's an interesting coincidence that Bradbury chose a butterfly to symbolize the chaotic effect multiplied over time. 

THEME OF THE STORY:

A Sound of Thunder is a time travel story that conveys a theme of the importance of all events and actions. The story focuses on a single event that occurs on the time travel safari that is run by the Time Safari Company and how a small mishap, the killing of a butterfly, changed the course of evolution.

Bradbury points out in this story how the careless behavior of one of the travelers causes a shift in the course of evolution. The story also focuses on a the fact that the group who takes the time traveling trips is a group of rich businessmen and Bradbury is saying that the fact that this type of company exists, and that people have nothing else to do with their money, is vulgar and obscene.

Bradbury, like other Science Fiction writers, such as H.G. Wells, writes about the fear of technology going too far.  In this story, I think Bradbury is commenting on how technology has been misused.  The technology that has allowed these time travelers to take a trip with Time Safari is clearly an expression of materialism and over consumption on the highest level.

For their personal pleasure, these people, rich people who have nothing else to do, alter the course of human evolution and nearly destroy human existence. Therefore, the theme that Bradbury is trying to convey has to do with the Butterfly Effect and Chaos theory, which states that a small difference can have an enormous impact on future events.