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A Sound Of Thunder And The Masque Of The

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Imagery in Storytelling
Imagery is a literary device that is a key component of short stories. It improves a reader's experience of the story by appealing to their senses and allowing them to visualize the world where the story takes place. Imagery can also make the reader curious about the purpose of certain descriptions, and help the reader understand the world and people being described. “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury and “The Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe are two short stories that make use of imagery to do these things. “A Sound of Thunder” takes place in the year 2055, when a company called Time Safari, Inc. allows adventurers to travel back in time to hunt extinct animals, like dinosaurs. A confident hunter named …show more content…

“The Masque of the Red Death” takes place in a country where a disease called the Red Death is spreading and causing many people to die gruesome deaths. Despite this, the prince, Prospero, ignores the plague and invites his noble friends to take refuge behind the gates of his castle. He then throws a fancy masquerade ball to entertain his guests. These are both different stories that use imagery to improve the reader's experience and immerse them in the story. "A Sound of Thunder" uses imagery to describe the setting and the characters, which makes the story more entertaining. While waiting for their Tyrannosaurus Rex, the jungle that the hunters were in was large and brimming with life. But everything suddenly froze once the dinosaur entered the story. Bradbury describes the dinosaur with great detail. "Each lower leg was a piston, a thousand pounds of white bone, sunk in thick ropes of muscle, sheathed over in a gleam of pebbled skin like the mail of a terrible warrior. Each thigh was a ton of meat, ivory, and steel mesh"(Bradbury 6). This quote uses metaphors and similes to compare the dinosaur to objects, which can …show more content…

Throughout the story, Poe uses a lot of imagery to describe the peculiar design of Prince Prosperos’ party. He describes the rooms at the party as bizarre, but fun and extravagant. But the last room he describes is very different compared to the other rooms. “But in the western or black chamber the effect of the firelight that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes, was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered...”(Poe 5). The description of this room gives the reader a sense of eeriness by using descriptors like "blood-tinted", and 'ghastly', which are associated with all things sinister and mysterious. Compared to the other rooms at the party, this room is the only one described in this way, which makes the reader intrigued and want to read further. Later, when the Red Death is introduced, the party-goers are disgusted and confused by its sudden emergence. “The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. … His vesture was dabbled in blood, and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror” (Poe 8). Poe paints a vivid picture of the Red Death by his clothing. He compares his mask to a “stiffened corpse” being “besprinkled with the scarlet

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To begin, the seven rooms at the gathering were all a significant part of the story, but more so the blue and black room. Based on the text it states, “…in blue-and vividly blue were in its window” (Poe, 421). The text also states, “The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all

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Foreshadowing A Sound of Thunder A Sound of Thunder is a fascinating short story written by Ray Bradbury. In this read, a protagonist by the name of Mr. Eckel wants to travel back to the time of dinosaurs. The nations has now come up with a Time Machine in the year of 2055 and when Eckel steps in that machine, boundaries and rules may be broken if he isn't careful. With precise words and the use of foreshadowing, we can predict what may happen next.

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There is a delicate balance between humanity and nature: every choice and action can leave a mark on the world. The story A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury shows the importance of the balance of nature and how important it is not to disturb the balance. The protagonist's name is Eckeles, and he goes with the tour guide Mr. Travis and his assistant Lesperance. There are also two other hunters named Billings and Kramer, and the last character is the man behind the desk with no name. The story is about a company named Time Safari INC. that takes hunters to the past to hunt dinosaurs, but has strict rules so they do not change the future.

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An example of this imagery the Poe uses is the ebony clock chiming and making the people in the entertainment room go silent in fear. “…. while the chimes of the clock yet rung, it observed that the giddiest grew pale, and more aged and sedate passed their hands

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Mariah Jensen Mrs. Ruiz English 102: Literary Analysis 18 April 2023 Current Actions Are Essential to Future Outcomes It is in the hands of humankind to preserve or destroy planet Earth. Indeed, as Mr. Travis said, “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” (Bradbury 141). In the story “A Sound of Thunder,” written by author Ray Bradbury, he shares a tale set in the year 2055. A man named Eckels paid for the opportunity to travel back in time to experience the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of hunting a dinosaur in an ancient jungle. Before exiting the time machine, his safari guide, Mr. Travis, explained the importance

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In A Sound of Thunder, by Ray Bradbury, the act of hunting symbolizes man’s greed and unnecessary need to control his environment. It’s a commentary on modern humans that hunt endangered species for their own wants. Hunting animals for game isn’t a necessity; humans hunt animals because we are greedy and have an urge to control our environment, whether or not we should. In the text, when the hunters travel back in time, the tour guide says the path is to, “keep you from touching this world of the past in any way” (3). This shows how humans aren’t supposed to interfere with the world by hunting these dinosaurs.

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To try and escape death the prince in "... the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. … resolved to leave means neither of ingress nor egress…"(Poe 3). The abbey is heavily fortified so as to not let anyone in that wasn't supposed to be there and keep the plague out. Even though the abbey is fortified the masked figure, the Red Death makes it in "His vesture was dabbled in blood…"

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Technology allows humans to study a variety of subjects and learn how they function. In “A Sound of Thunder” when the group of hunters had just arrived in the jungle in the past, Travis tells Eckels that before every expedition Lesperance goes back to the particular era that they will be time traveling to so he can study and track certain animals throughout their existence and map out which animals can be hunted. The research and data that Lesperance collects helps the Time Travel Inc. to know which animals are nearing the end of their lives and can be killed without causing any alteration to the past, present, or the future (Bradbury 141). Due to the advanced technology of time travel, Lesperance is able to track and research certain dinosaurs. Technology enables research to be collected and analyzed more efficiently, along with deeper insights from various sources that could lead to a potentially new discovery.

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The Foundation of a Story In “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury, the setting is slightly peculiar. The story takes place in the future and the past. It begins and ends in the year 2055 at a time travel hunting business, however, the majority of the story takes place millions of years before, during the time of the dinosaurs. Throughout the story, the setting sets the tone, motivates the characters actions, and leads to the theme.

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