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"A Sound of Thunder" is an influential science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury, first published in Collier's magazine in the June 28, 1952 issue and Playboy in June 1956. As of 1984, it was the most re-published science fiction story up to the present time.

Plot summary

In the year 2055, time travel has become a practical reality, and the company Time Safari Inc. offers wealthy adventurers the chance to travel back in time to hunt extinct species such as dinosaurs. A hunter named Eckels pays $10,000 to join a hunting party that will travel back to the late Cretaceous Era, on a guided safari to kill a Tyrannosaurus rex. As the party waits to depart they discuss the recent presidential elections in which an apparently fascist candidate, Deutscher, has been defeated by the more moderate Keith, to the relief of many concerned. When the party arrives in the past, Travis (the hunting guide) and Lesperance (Travis’s assistant) warn Eckels and the two other hunters, Billings and Kramer, about the necessity of minimizing the events they change before they go back, since tiny alterations to the distant past could snowball into catastrophic changes in history. Travis explains that the hunters are obliged to stay on a levitating path to avoid disrupting the environment, that any deviation will be punished with hefty fines, and that prior to the hunt Time Safari scouts have been sent back to select and tag their prey, which would have died within minutes anyway, and whose deaths have been calculated to have minimal impact on the future.

Although Eckels is initially excited about the hunt, when the monstrous Tyrannosaur approaches, he loses his nerve. Travis tells him he cannot leave, but Eckels panics, steps off the path and runs into the forest. Eckels hears shots, and on his return he sees that the two guides have killed the dinosaur, and shortly afterward the falling tree that would have killed the T-Rex has landed on top of it. Realizing that Eckels has fallen off the path, Travis threatens to leave him in the past unless he removes the bullets from the dinosaur’s body, as they cannot be left behind. Eckels obeys, but Travis remains furious, threatening on the return trip to shoot him.

Upon returning to 2055, Eckels notices subtle changes - English words are now spelled and spoken strangely, people behave differently, and Eckels discovers that Deutscher has won the election instead of Keith. Looking at the mud on his boots, Eckels finds a crushed butterfly, whose death has apparently set in motion a series of subtle changes that have affected the nature of the alternative present to which the safari has returned. He frantically pleads with Travis to take him back into the past to undo the damage, but Travis explains that the time machine cannot return to any point in time that has already been visited (so as to prevent any paradoxes). Travis raises his gun, and there is "a sound of thunder".

Characters

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Eckels – Is the main protagonist of the story. He is scared at first of the potential dangers of going back in time to hunt. As he enters the building containing the offices of Time Safari, Inc., he has to push down a mouth full of phlegm suggesting that he is nervous about the upcoming safari. Eckels also questions if the safari guarantees that he will come back alive further showing his lack of confidence. He is clearly out of his element and his actions support this. When Eckels finds out that Lesperance has already traveled back in time, he completely disregards Travis explanation of the potential dangers of disturbing anything while they are in the past. Eckles takes Travis’s explanation of not belonging in the past and the dangers of it as simple conjecture, telling Travis “that’s not clear." When he comes face to face with the Tyrannosaurus Rex, Eckles turns numb and says “Get me out of here” and describes how different this safari is from any of the other safaris he has been on before. Lesperance's commands are all that prevent Eckels from blindly shuffling off the path. After being redirected by Lesperance, Eckles makes his way back to the time machine while the others continue the hunt. Eckels represents the stereotype of the rich game hunter that is more interested in showing off the trophy and not the thrill of the hunt. When the party returns after successfully taking down the Tyrannosaurus Rex, Travis makes Eckels retrieve the bullets from the dinosaur as punishment for stepping off the path. Staying in line with his character, Eckels attempts to pay off Travis with one hundred thousand dollars. Travis refuses and gives Eckles a knife and tells him to reach his arms all they way down the mouth of the dinosaur till his elbows are colored red and pull the bullets out. Despite the fact that the Tyrannosaurus Rex is dead, this stills causes Eckles great distress. When he returns he is shuddering and collapses to the floor and does not move until they return to the future. Upon returning to the future, Eckles finds the world he left slightly altered. He notices a slight taint of chemical smell in the air and that the sign on the wall that displays the name and slogan of Time Safari, Inc., has changed. The spelling of the words is very different. After noticing this, Eckles sits down and wipes the mud off his boots to find a dead butterfly embedded in the mud. All the fears that Eckels felt become a reality. Eckels verifies that things are different by confirming who won the presidency. In this new time line, Deutscher won the election. After pleading to everyone, Travis then raises his rifle and takes the safety off and a sound of thunder is heard. It is implied that Travis is true to his word and shoots Eckels.

Keith – The winning candidate for president before the safari heads back unto the past. Considered to be the moral liberal of the two candidates. At the end of the story, he is the losing candidate and is described as being weak and lacking guts. Keith represents the western ideal of compassion for all men and is the inverse of Deutscher. “Thank God Keith won. He’ll make a fine President of the United States.” Although said by the counter clerk, it was feeling that all the members of the party agreed with.

Deutscher – The losing candidate at the beginning of the story. He is described as the worst kind of dictator - a militarist, anti-Christ, anti-human, and anti-intellectual. He represents the cold calculating leaders of militaristic countries. Deutscher can be viewed as an Adolf Hitler style of leader.

Mr. Travis – The travel guide and leader of the party. He explains all the rules and is responsible for make sure everything goes as plans. Travis explains how what they do in the past the can reverberate and is compounded over time. “And all the families of the families of the families of that one mouse! With a stamp of your foot, you annihilate first one, then a dozen, then a thousand, a million, a billion possible mice!” Travis takes this example further and describes a world in which stepping on a mouse could alter the course so much that George Washington never crosses the Delaware and the United States does not exist. At the end of the Safari, it is implied that Mr. Travis kills Eckels with a gunshot.

Lesperance – Travis assistant. He travels back in time before the safaris and tracks the target. He finds the exact moment that it will die naturally and sets the trip around it. Lesperance also acts as a balance to Travis. He calms Travis down and convinces him to let Eckels come back with them. He is also responsible for deescalating Eckels emotional state when he gets scared when he finally comes face to face with the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Adaptations

The story was aired on The Ray Bradbury Theater on October 8, 1989. In this adaptation, Travis levels a pistol at Eckels' head prior to a "sound of thunder" and a quick cut to credits.

The story was also parodied in the Time and Punishment section of The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror V".

Franchise Pictures developed a film adaptation under the same title, which was targeted for a 2003 release but ultimately delayed until September 2005. The film continues the story beyond Bradbury's work, bringing to life how the death of a single butterfly would impact evolution and humanity's chance of survival. The movie failed at the box office and received poor reviews.

A Game Boy Advance video game based on the film was also released. It was finished in time for the film's planned 2003 release, delayed along with it and ultimately released in February 2005. Planned console ports were cancelled.

Influence

"A Sound of Thunder" is often miscredited as the origin of the term "butterfly effect", a concept of chaos theory in which the flapping of a butterfly in one part of the world could create a hurricane on the opposite side of the globe. The term was actually introduced by meteorologist Edward Norton Lorenz in the 1960's. However, Bradbury's concept of how the death of a butterfly in the past could have drastic changes in the future is a representation of the butterfly effect, and used as an example of how to consider chaos theory and the physics of time travel.

See also

• A Gun for Dinosaur, a short story by L. Sprague de Camp, first published in 1956 in Galaxy Science Fiction. Also produced as an episode of X Minus One for NBC radio in 1956.

• Poor Little Warrior!, a short story by Brian Aldiss, published in 1959 in No Time Like Tomorrow. It also features a time traveler hunting for dinosaurs.

References

This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (December 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

1. Willis, Jesse (30 March 2011). "A Sound Of Thunder". Radio Drama Revival: Bradbury 13. SFFaudio. Retrieved 30 November 2013.
2. William G. Contento, Index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections, Combined Edition, January 2008
3. "The Ray Bradbury Theater - Season 4, Episode 6: A Sound of Thunder". TV.com. 2007-05-22. Retrieved 2013-10-05.
4. "Sound of Thunder - 3 of 3". YouTube. 2007-09-26. Retrieved 2013-10-05.
5. "A Sound of Thunder (2005)". IMDb.com. Retrieved 2013-10-05.
6. "A Sound of Thunder - IGN". Ca.ign.com. Retrieved 2013-10-05.
7. Flam, Faye (2012-06-15). "The Physics of Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder"". Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved 2015-09-02.
8. Patai, Daphne. "Ray Bradbury And The Assault On Free Thought." Society 50.1 (2013): 41-47. Academic Search Premier. Web. 22 Nov. 2014.
9. Paradowski, Robert J. "Ray Bradbury." Critical Survey Of Long Fiction, Fourth Edition (2010): 1-9. Literary Reference Center. Web. 22 Nov. 2014
10. Weller, Sam. The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray Bradbury. New York: William Morrow, 2005. Print
11. Holmes, Neil. "Fateful butterfly." New Scientist 182.2443 (2004): 31. Academic OneFile. Web. 22 Nov. 2014.

External links

2. Part 2

• A Sound of Thunder title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Resources for finding and reading the story

• 1952 short stories
• Time travel in short fiction
• Science fiction short stories
• Novels about dinosaurs
• Short stories by Ray Bradbury
• Works originally published in Collier's Weekly