Back To The Future In Ray Bradbury's A Sound Of Thunder

Words: 770
Pages: 4

Back to the Future!
When exploring the concept of past, present, and future and their connectivity with each other, one might think of what would happen if a different decision had been made in the past. Society does not realize the effect they have on the future. New inventions and creations are altering how humans function today, or to be more exact, how people will act in the future. In his short story, “A Sound of Thunder,” Ray Bradbury uses the cause and effect theory to depict an ordinary man to experience the past and hunt dinosaurs over sixty-million years ago. Bradbury uses the idea of the “Butterfly Effect” to show how little things can make a big difference. For every action there is a reaction. When Eckles, a few other hunters, and the guide, Travis, arrived in the previous world there was a anti-gravity metal path that they had to stay on. Travis explains that the hunters were not to step off this path in order to keep the past in the past. Eckles doesn’t see a point to this and he expresses his annoyance to Travis. As the guide gives an example of stepping off the path and accidentally killing a mouse, he says, “The stomp of your foot, on one mouse, could start an earthquake, the effects of which could shake our earth and destinies down through Time, to their very foundations.” (page 588) Travis explains that by killing one tiny mouse he is affecting the entire food chain. The Time Safari is a very risky business considering
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He paid $10,000 up front to kill a Tyrannosaurus Rex, but little did he know he would alter the millennium. The past, present,future are complex ideas that humans today try to understand and are taught in school. Bradbury uses the “Butterfly Effect” to show that little things can make a big difference. For every action there is a reaction, and many individuals may not realize that the outcome of their choices can affect other people now or in the