Ray Bradbury's 'A Sound Of Thunder'

Nature’s past, present, and future have a great impact on society and its motives. In Ray Bradbury’s short story “A Sound of Thunder” he talks about the consequences of messing with nature. The point that he wants to get across is very clear: that nature’s preservation is critical to the world’s success. In this story, the character Eckels goes back in time to kill a t-rex. He does this with the workers Travis and Lesperance from Time Safari Inc. They have other hunters with them as well who want the same thing. Eckels realizes he is way over his head when he sees the t-rex, so he stumbles back to the time machine, unaware of how much damage he is doing to the environment. They go back after almost getting eaten by the t-rex but the present is a different place than before.

There is a different point of view on this story. Some people might view this story as a story on the dangers of technology. Although this may be a good point of view, Bradbury was trying to tell the world that messing with nature and its past will affect even the smallest of things. Bradbury’s story tells humans that messing with nature will have dire consequences. This portrayal is done very well in this tale. Even though there may be multiple points of view, the one that is portrayed most is preserving nature and not messing with it. Just like in the story, throughout it, the tour guides are persistent on not stepping on grass, animals, etc. Eckels portrays how a lot of the world sees nature, as something that doesn’t matter and can be meddled with while the tour guides portray the nature preservation groups that want to save it. When Eckels steps on the butterfly and messes up the present, this is a perfect example of what will happen to the world in the future; but the world continues to squander their chances of a better world. It shows the power of how changing nature can even change the political stances of the