Analyzing Ray Bradbury's 'A Sound Of Thunder'

Analyzing The Preservation of Nature Through Ray Bradbury’s “A Sound of Thunder” Ray Bradbury’s short story titled “A Sound of Thunder” presents multiple themes, the most prevalent being the preservation of nature. While the preservation of nature has been a talked about topic as of recent, this short story was written in 1952. This goes to show the timelessness of the matter. Bradbury engages the reader with many quotes that include examples of this topic. “A Sound of Thunder” is a prime example of how one small incursion can present a greater problem. Bradbury first introduces us to this theme with a quote on the third page saying, “A dead mouse here makes an insect imbalance there, a population disproportion later, a bad harvest further

“You joking? You know very well. Deutscher, of course! Who else? Not that fool weakling Keith. We got an Iron Man now, a man with guts!’ The official stopped. ‘What's wrong” (Bradburry 11). This quote is explaining the difference in the man behind the desk before Eckles left to when he returned. The president before he left was president Keith, but as he returned, and was talking to the man behind the desk, he realized that one difference made by his action was that there was a completely new president named Deutscher. This also supports the point because it shows how one small action over the course of hundreds of millions of years, changed the outcome of the presidential election, which could have a booming effect on the world. Imagine that they had killed something larger than just a butterfly. If a butterfly could change the president, imagine a mouse, imagine a larger animal, imagine a large predator, or even imagine the largest predator. The United States as a whole, could possibly not even exist, along with multiple other countries, along with many civilizations, or even the human race as a whole. Tying this into the preservation of nature is saying, imagine next time one kills a deer, they could change the future of this planet, based on one decision. Same could be said for these large companies trying to cut down the rainforests. If the world does not stop to try and preserve nature, soon, there may be no more

He fumbled crazily at the thick slime on his boots. He held up a cloud of dirt, trembling, ‘No! it can't be. Not a little thing like that. No!’ Embedded in the mud, glistening green, and gold, and black, was a butterfly, very beautiful and very dead” (Bradbury 12). This quote was explaining the action that made this entirely different reality unfold. The action of Eckols, stepping on, and killing one singular butterfly. The way the Safari was set up, was to ensure that there would not be any animals killed that would change anything about the future, and time that they were living in. One small mistake was Eckels, stepping off the path and killing one butterfly that was sitting in the mud where he stepped. Why risk the entirety of a future off of one mistake. Preserving nature means letting nature unfold the way it is intended to. The reason problems occurred was because nature was messed with. It was not preserved in the way it should have