Symbolism In A Sound Of Thunder, By Ray Bradbury

The year is 2055, in Ray Bradbury’s short story, “A Sound of Thunder”, Eckels, an experienced and self-assured hunter, pays a high price to go back in time and hunt a Tyrannosaurus Rex with a time-traveling company, called the Time Safari, Inc. After breaking important rules, Eckels realizes that the adventure was too much for him to handle, as well as unintentionally alters his societies future. “The story tackles the very premise of how mankind’s smallest actions can have universal implications (Weller). Through symbolism and character analysis, “A Sound of Thunder”, expresses the well known scientific idea of the butterfly effect, in demonstrating that small, almost unnoticed, decisions or mistakes can effect an entire chain of events. The main character in “A Sound of Thunder” is Eckels, a confident and committed hunter, who lives in a futuristic society when time …show more content…
The butterfly represents transformation. The transformation from confidence to defeat in Eckels and the transformation from fear to death. Thunder, like in a storm is unexpected. Eckels never saw the Tyrannosaurus Rex die, leaving it to be a sound of mystery. As well as Eckels never seeing the rifle being pointed and shot at him. Ray Bradbury’s symbolism and his characters in “A Sound of Thunder” tied the entire story together.
Bradbury’s tale serves not only to entertain but also to speculate on the dangers of time travel. His illustration of a ripple effect on the timeline caused by seemingly unrelated events… is also explained in the context of the story (Taylor).
He touches on the dangers of possible futuristic inventions, as well as a popular scientific idea, the butterfly effect, in which a butterfly beats it’s wings on one side of the world, and on the other side a hurricane takes place, describing the cause and effect of every