Similarities Between A Sound Of Thunder And There Will Come Soft Rains

In Ray Bradbury’s works “A Sound of Thunder” and “August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains” he demonstrates a theme of technology being the ultimate downfall and chaotic antagonist of humanity. New historicism can be applied to both texts in order to find out the reason why Bradbury includes this theme of technological doom to some of his literary works. This viewpoint allows us to understand what happened during the time that may have influence Bradbury to write these short stories and develop his opinion on technology. It is important to note that during the time that Bradbury was writing these works, America was in the middle of World War 2.

Most people are aware that many technological advancements were made during WW2. Some generally made

Bradbury illustrates a beautiful sequence of events that show how one man (Eckels) travels back in time with the goal of killing a Tyrannosaurus Rex (T-Rex). He is unsuccessful in his quest and ultimately screws up time by killing a butterfly, which then causes multiple things to change when Eckels goes back to his time period and is then killed because of his violation of the rules of time travel set forth by “TIME SAFARI, INC.” Bradbury most likely based this story on time travel because many people thought that technology would eventually become so advanced by the year 2055, we infer, that such things as time travel becomes possible. Bradbury had no real expectations that time travel could be possible at some point in time. But he insisted on using his imagination in combination with new technological advancements that were becoming so frequent during World War 2, and decided on writing a story about time travel. This story takes on a deep meaning of how time travel, and ultimately technology, can become messy when in the wrong hands, and even in the right hands. The obvious theme is that technology will be the downfall of humanity, but most people overlook the fact that technology only became destructive when it fell into the hands of human. Therefore, humans destroyed themselves with sophistication and curiosity. It can be deducted that Bradbury has a fear of the steady advancement of technology, but he may actually be afraid of the eagerness that people have about constantly improving their lives with seemingly harmless tools and mechanisms. This fear could be seen through many people that lived during World War 2 because they didn’t necessarily fear technology itself, but they feared the people that were in control of that technology. People couldn’t possibly be scared of the atomic bomb because they didn’t know how the bomb worked,