A Sound of Thunder – Literary Analysis

Setting

A Sound of Thunder takes place in three locations: 1) An office in the “present” (actually some time in the distant future); 2) A time machine during the journey to and from location 3; and 3) A jungle in the late Cretaceous period (over 60 million years in the past).

The vivid imagery used in describing the office establishes the atmosphere for the whole story. The room, like the coming jungle, appears almost alive: …a mass and tangle, a snaking and humming of wires and steel boxes, an aurora that flickered now orange, now silver, now blue… a sound like a gigantic bonfire burning all of Time, all the years and all the parchment calendars, all the hours piled high and set aflame. In the next paragraph, a single sentence containing almost twenty short, sharp instances of figurative language creates an illusion of the rapid, frantic passing of time: Out of chars and ashes, out of dust and coals, like golden salamanders, the old years, the green years, might leap; roses sweeten the air, white hair turn Irish-black, wrinkles vanish; all, everything fly back to seed, flee death, rush down to their beginnings, suns rise in western skies and set in glorious easts, moons eat themselves opposite to the custom, all and everything cupping one in another like Chinese boxes, rabbits into hats, all and everything returning to the fresh death, the seed death, the green death, to the time before the beginning.

Point of View and Tone

The story is told by a third person limited narrator. He/she is only privy to the thoughts and feelings of the main character (Eckles). Events are generally related in an objective manner, with the narrator reporting the facts and conversations as he/she observes them. The overall tone is serious and foreboding. An important exception is the narrator’s tone towards Eckles, which is contemptuous from the very first paragraph: Warm phlegm gathered in Eckels’ throat; he swallowed and pushed it down. The muscles around his mouth formed a smile as he put his hand slowly out upon the air, and in that hand waved a check for ten thousand dollars to the man behind the desk.

Themes

The major themes in the story are arrogance, cowardice, the dangers of technology, the connections between past and present, the fine line between democracy and dictatorship, and the ethics of game hunting. Arrogance is highlighted on two levels: personal (Eckles’s belief that money can buy anything) and scientific (the presumption that man can manipulate time, one of the basic laws of nature, without adverse consequences).

Characters and Conflicts

The Protagonist: Eckles – narcissistic, arrogant, ostentatious, cowardly.
The Antagonist: I have seen a number of antagonists suggested for this story, ranging from the T-Rex to nature, time and even Time Safari, Inc. For me, this is one of those rare stories where the major conflict lies within the protagonist. The antagonist is a state of being: fear. As the idiom goes, he (Eckles) is his own worst enemy.
Travis – serious and dutiful, but quick tempered and impetuous. His initial reaction to Eckles stepping off the path was to leave him behind, which would well have caused an even greater ripple effect; shooting Eckles on their return removes the option of returning him to the past to undo what he has done.
Minor Characters: The official behind the desk – businesslike, serious but friendly; Travis’s assistant (Lesperance) – efficient, a calming influence during the crisis in the jungle.
Internal Conflicts: 1) Eckles’s struggles with his fear; 2) Travis’s struggles with his temper.
External Conflicts: 1) The time travelers’ unsuccessful efforts to avoid a ripple effect. (Man vs. Nature); 2) The hunter’s struggle with the dinosaur. (Man vs. nature); 3) Travis’s arguments with Eckles (Man vs. Man); 4) Time, Inc’s conflict with government policy. The government doesn’t like us here. We have to pay big graft to keep our franchise. (Man vs. Society); 5) Democracy against dictatorship. (Society vs. Society)

Dramatic Structure & Mood

Exposition: The period in the office until entering the time machine. Mood – expectancy.
Rising Action: The period in the time machine and preparatory activities in the past, up to the point that they hear a sound of thunder and see Tyrannosaurus Rex. Mood – fascination.
Climax: The dinosaur’s charge and Eckles’s cowardly reaction and step off the path. Mood – excitement, disgust.
Falling Action: Death of the dinosaur and return to time machine. Mood – sadness (for the dinosaur), anger (at Eckles).
Denouement: Return to a different world, shooting of Eckles. Mood – surprise, uncertainty (about the future).

Examples of Literary Techniques

Bradbury often makes extensive (some might even say excessive) use of descriptive elements in his stories. This one is no exception!

Imagery: A Sound of Thunder contains many powerful examples of imagery. Two of the best instances can be found in descriptions of the dinosaur: 1) When it first appears, we have the long paragraph beginning It came on great oiled, resilient, striding legs… This does an excellent job of conveying the size and power of the beast, as well as its potential danger: Its mouth gaped, exposing a fence of teeth like daggers. Its eyes rolled, …empty of all expression save hunger. It closed its mouth in a death grin. 2) Later, we have the dinosaur’s charge: The Monster …lunged forward with a terrible scream. It covered one hundred yards in six seconds. … A windstorm from the beast’s mouth engulfed them in the stench of slime and old blood. The Monster roared, teeth glittering with sun. … Their (the rifle’s) sound was lost in shriek and lizard thunder. The great level of the reptile’s tail swung up, lashed sideways. Trees exploded in clouds of leaf and branch. The Monster twitched its jeweler’s hands down to fondle at the men, to twist them in half, to crush them like berries, to cram them into its teeth and its screaming throat. Its boulderstone eyes leveled with the men. They saw themselves mirrored. They fired at the metallic eyelids and the blazing black iris, This passage appeals to all five senses, allowing readers to picture the speed and fury of the attack and almost feel the great lizard’s anger and hatred of the men.
Hyperbole: 1) The jungle was high and the jungle was broad and the jungle was the entire world forever and forever.; 2) It (the T-Rex) could reach up and grab the moon.
Irony: 1) Eckles traveled back in time to kill a dinosaur; all he managed to do was kill was a butterfly. (Situational); 2) Killing the dinosaur changed nothing; killing the butterfly changed the world. (Situational)
Metaphor: 1) Perhaps the most important metaphor in the story is A sound of thunder. As the title, it is a metaphor for the possible earth-shattering consequences of the ripple effect. In the text, it is used metaphorically in describing both the steps of the dinosaur and the firing of Travis’s gun. ; 2) Time was a film run backward.; 3) The Monster lay, a hill of solid flesh.
Personification: 1) Suns fled and ten million moons fled after them. 2) It ran with a gliding ballet step
Simile: 1) a sound like a gigantic bonfire burning all of Time.; 2)Its armored flesh glittered like a thousand green coins.; 3) Like a stone idol, like a mountain avalanche, Tyrannosaurus fell.
Symbolism: 1) The butterfly is a symbol for cause and effect (the ripple effect); how a small change in one thing can result in significant changes in another; 2) The floating path is a symbol of respect for nature and the environment; stepping off the path can have disastrous results.