In the short story “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury, there’s an indistinctly meaningful side of the story. Ray Bradbury is known for being a horror, science-fiction, fantasy, and mystery. In almost all of his stories, there is a dark side that is intricately woven into his stories, along with a deliberate theme. Seen in many of his tales like “The Veldt” or “All Summer in a Day”. In this tale, he conveys the theme of “A seemingly small thing could make a huge difference.
Eckel, the cowardly protagonist with death surrounding his thoughts travels back in time to kill a dinosaur, and learns a huge life lesson. Before Eckel travels back in time, Travis, the guide warns Eckel that stepping on a thing as small as an ant could disrupt the entire future world and could even erase humanity. Eckel however is incredulous and continuously asks why he couldn’t step one foot into the ground. After one example, Eckel still thinks that that is a paradox and continues to question. After finally understanding, he agrees. This could foreshadow that in future of the story, he’s going to step foot onto the ground. This is because he repeatedly asks why and does not believe it.
A few minutes after traveling back in time, they arrive to the spot where they are going to shoot the dinosaur. However, the moment the dinosaur steps into view, Eckel is steeped with consternation and panic and immediately backs down and almost sprints back to the time machine. His talking is heard by the dinosaur and it comes towards them. Fortunately, Eckel’s companions are quick to shoot the dinosaur down. After all this confusion, to Eckel’s horror, he indeed has stepped foot in the mud. Travis knows how bad it could be and threatens to leave Eckel stuck in time; but after much argument, Travis hesitantly leads them back to the time machine and travel back in time.
However, to their horror again, something has changed. The atmosphere feels different, and the walls are painted another color. Eckel, pale-faced and sweaty turns his muddy boot upside down and lifts a crushed up exquisite butterfly from his boot. He dreadfully asks the official who is president, and with a reply of “Deutscher”, he knows he screwed up. Eckel drops to the floor, the butterfly falling to the floor beside him. And Travis, cocking his rifle shoots Eckel as a sound of thunder rings across the room.
From this extremely tense scene, we can see that Eckel stepped on a tiny butterfly and changed the entire events of yesterday, and the years before. By stepping on a seemingly small thing, he changed the way words are written, what’s in the air, and who became president. Bradbury illustrates this theme through this sci-fi short story and teaches us an important lesson.