A Sound of Thunder

- Ray Bradbury

Literal comprehension: The story “The Sound of Thunder” is written by Ray Bradbury. In this story, he presents a picture of our environment, and asks his reader to think about our future world. The story has emphasized on eco –balance, and evokes the reader to think about the future.

Mr. Eckels was tempted by a sign put on the wall of a safari company which claimed to take the hunter back to any time in the past and hunt any animal they wished. After paying the charge, he got into the Time Machine which would take him in the past. There were four other men with him .The machine took them sixty million two thousand and fifty five years back in the past. Eckles was surprised to see the beauty of the jungle and was eager to shoot a dinosaur. But he was warned by the safari leader not to shoot any animal without his permission. More that that, there was a path set in the jungle which was floating six inches high above the ground level ,and the path was made of anti-gravity metal . Eckles was reported that he had to be careful not to fall from the path, so that he wouldn’t touch anything in the past .Because killing one ordinary animal in the future .The life of thousands of animals would be threatened if accidently killed an animal .Then Eckles was given the information that dinosaurs he was going to shoot has been marked earlier .The safari leader had marked the dinosaur which would die naturally shortly after. This means that they were shooting the animal with no future. But when the dinosaur came close to him, Eckles couldn’t face it and went to hide himself in the Time Machine .The hunters faught with their life and killed the dinosaur. It was shoot on the spot where it would die naturally few seconds later .Then Eckles was asked to take out the bullet from the dead animal so that no unnatural object left in the jungle in the past era .The dead body was left on the jungle to be disposed of naturally because the life of hundreds of insects depended on the dead body of that dead dinosaur.

Interpretation: The story may be trying to tell us something about the eco-system, eco-balance and trying to criticize the modern world .The modern people have grown selfish, they don’t think about the future. The earth has been polluted because of human activities, and global warming is increasing .By talking the readers millions years back in the past , the writer is probably trying to give the message that killing even a simple animal at the present may have devastating effect in the future.

Critical thinking: The story is beautiful but there are a lot of situation which are not agreeable .It is possible that we go back in the past era with Time Machine? Can anyone face the deadly animal like dinosaur? Does anyone get crazy about killing such animals like dinosaur?