Everything Matters In Ray Bradbury's Short Story 'A Sound Of Thunder'

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Everything Matters
The style that Ray Bradbury uses in his short story “A Sound of Thunder” is very eerie. The story is about a guy named Eckel who wants to travel back in time and kill a tyrannosaurus rex. He went to the safari place and handed them the $10,000 check, then the tour guide and his assistant got in the time machine with Eckel and another young man. They travel to where they needed to be and when the time came to shoot, Eckel backed out and went walking off the path, he killed a butterfly when he stepped down. When they all got back in the time machine Travis screamed at him to get out, but instead of making him stay in that time, he made him go fish the bullets out of the dinosaur. Ray Bradbury uses the protagonist and antagonist of his story to write a story with an ironic and tragic twist. He also uses a simple butterfly to show how little things in life matter. …show more content…

Eckel walked off the path and killed one singular butterfly. By killing it he changed the whole future. Eckel thought that it was just one little butterfly what could it have hurt? Which is the tragedy, that after acknowledging he killed it he just thought it would make no difference. When Travis made Eckel get out, they were actually in the present day. Eckel walked into the safari time machine place, everything was the same but the sign behind the desk was very different, so Eckel asked who won the election the day before and the winner was the losing candidate when they left in the time machine. Ironically Travis knew that the whole future had been altered, and wanted Eckel to see