A Sound of Thunder

Bradbury


Literal Comprehension

The story is set in 2055. A hunter known as Eckels goes on the adventure of a lifetime: traveling back into the past on a prehistoric safari to kill a Tyrannosaurus Rex. 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 changes to the distant past could bring disastrous changes in history. To keep from having any effect on the past, the hunters must stay on a path to avoid disrupting the environment and only kill animals that were going to naturally die at the same time.

Despite his earlier eagerness to begin the hunt, Eckels loses his courage at the sight of the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Travis tells him he can't leave, but Eckels gets frightened and goes 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' joy quickly changes to anger 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 can’t be left in the past.

Upon returning to the present, Eckels notices slight changes on the board. English words are now spelled strangely, people and buildings are different. Looking through the mud on his boots, Eckels finds a crushed butterfly, whose death was, in fact, 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 supposed that he kills Eckels.

Interpretation

This science fiction can be taken a critique of modern society. The story also tries to point out that a seemingly insignificant event such as the death of a butterfly can have earth-shaking consequences. Besides, the story is an illustration of a “ripple effect”, an unintentional, long-term, pervasive, impact of a seemingly unrelated event.