2. by Ray Bradbury

3. Most noted for his short stories, Ray Bradbury has also written novels, children’s books, plays, screenplays, television scripts, and poetry. Bradbury was born in Waukegan, Illinois, in 1920. His family moved to Los Angeles in 1934. He became interested in books and writing early in life. A Sound of Thunder Meet the Writer Ray Bradbury

4. Ray Bradbury is one of those rare individuals whose writing has changed the way people think. His more than five hundred published works -- short stories, novels, plays, screenplays, television scripts, and verse -- exemplify the American imagination at its most creative.

5. Ray Bradbury Ray Bradbury calls himself a teller of tales and a magic realist. He also claims to remember everything – every book he’s ever read, every movie he’s seen, all the events of his life back to and including his birth, in Waukegan, Illinois, on August 22, 1920. All those memories and a big imagination are the materials for the fiction and poetry he’s been publishing for more than fifty years.

6. Ray Bradbury Bradbury’s work is full of childhood imaginings, fantasies, and nightmares – portraits of Venus and Mars, time travel, ageless children, never-ending rains – but Bradbury the grown-up is a concerned citizen. His fantasy stories are often warnings against blind faith in science, but they’re optimistic. By giving strange twists to everyday objects and events, Bradbury challenges his readers to look at them as if for the first time. As a writer he lets readers see science through the excited years of children, but he also informs, suggesting ways to use technology more responsibly.

7. Genre A genre is a category or type of literature, such as fiction or poetry. Each genre can be subdivided into more specific categories that can be identified by subject matter, content, or style. Identifying the genre of a selection helps a reader to establish expectations for the work. Readers can understand the genre of a literary work by analyzing its characteristics. As you read “A Sound of Thunder,” notice the clues that reveal the common elements of science fiction.

8. Elements of Science Fiction Damon Knight, author, editor, critic, and founder of the Science Fiction Writers of America, once attempted to quantify the elements of science fiction. He came up with the following list derived from a number of previously published formal definitions of science fiction: –science –technology and invention –the future and the remote past, including all time travel stories –extrapolation (speculation based on signs or omens) –scientific method –other places--planets, dimensions, etc., including visitors from the above –catastrophes, natural or manmade Knight concluded that a story with at least three of the above elements is generally perceived to be science fiction; stories with two elements were borderline; stories with one or no elements were not science fiction. Damon Knight

9. Science Fiction Although the term science fiction was not used until about 1930, science fiction tales have been told since before the invention of writing. One of the earliest science fiction writers was Lucian of Samosata who, around 100 BC, wrote a fantasy about a journey to the moon. Modern science fiction began to take shape in the nineteenth century.

10. Science Fiction Science fiction is defined loosely as fiction that deals with the impact of science and technology on the world. Sometimes the technology is real, sometimes it is entirely imagined, and sometimes it has been imagined by an author and then brought to reality by scientists. Science fiction themes often warn of the potential for disaster when technology is abused.

11. A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury “Who controls the past controls the future.” —George Orwell

12. A Sound of Thunder In the short story, Ray Bradbury implies that seemingly insignificant actions can change the future for an entire generation. Before you read the story, think about the following questions: How might your actions during your lifetime affect someone living one hundred years in the future? Do you believe that you have a responsibility to future generations?

13. A Sound of Thunder Introducing the Story It’s the year 2055. Eckels, a wealthy hunter, wants to travel back in time to shoot a ferocious dinosaur. But he gets in over his head when he books passage with Time Safari, Inc. This story explores the possibility that even tiny changes to the environment of the past can drastically alter the future.

14. Tyrannosaurus Rex The Tyrannosaurus rex lived during the late Cretaceous Period, between 97 and 66 million years ago. Scientists estimate its length at about 40 to 50 feet, its height at about 15 to 20 feet, and its weight at about 5 to 7 tons. The dinosaur’s open mouth revealed frighteningly sharp six-inch-long teeth with serrated edges.

15. T-rex lived during the late Cretaceous Period. What other life forms were around then? insects similar to today’s marine invertebrates A Sound of Thunder Introducing the Story the first flowering plants

16. Ray Bradbury tells this science-fiction story in a lush and poetic style. A Sound of Thunder Literary Focus: Style The setting and the figurative language shape a tense and suspenseful mood, or atmosphere. He uses vivid images and imaginative figurative language to create an exotic setting.

17. As you read “A Sound of Thunder,” notice the elements of Bradbury’s style. A Sound of Thunder Literary Focus: Style Images: Which of your senses do they appeal to? What feelings do they evoke for you? Diction and sentence patterns: How do they create a distinctive writing style? Figurative language: How does it help create the setting? the mood?

18. Diction Eckels glanced across the vast office at a mass and tangle, a snaking and humming of wires and steel boxes, at an aurora that flickered now orange, now silver, now blue. There was 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.

19. Foreshadowing Foreshadowing - Lesperance's explanation to Eckles on the dangers of small changes in the past having catastrophic effects on the future foreshadows the changes that occur. The constant warnings to stay off the path indicate that Eckles will leave the path

20. Suspense - Bradbury uses foreshadowing, dangerous action, and pacing to create suspense.

21. The Butterfly Effect "The butterfly effect, first described by Lorenz at the December 1972 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C., vividly illustrates the essential idea of chaos theory. In a 1963 paper for the New York Academy of Sciences, Lorenz had quoted an unnamed meteorologist's assertion that, if chaos theory were true, a single flap of a single seagull's wings would be enough to change the course of all future weather systems on the earth. By the time of the 1972 meeting, he had examined and refined that idea for his talk, "Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil set off a Tornado in Texas?" The example of such a small system as a butterfly being responsible for creating such a large and distant system as a tornado in Texas illustrates the impossibility of making predictions for complex systems; despite the fact that these are determined by underlying conditions, precisely what those conditions are can never be sufficiently articulated to allow long-range predictions."

22. Butterfly Effect “All right,” Travis continued, “say we accidentally kill one mouse here. That means all the future families of this one particular mouse are destroyed, right?” “Right.” “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!” “So they’re dead,” said Eckels. “So what?”

23. Butterfly Effect “So what?” Travis snorted quietly. “Well, what about the foxes that’ll need those mice to survive? For want of ten mice, a fox dies. For want of ten foxes a lion starves. For want of a lion, all manner of insects, vultures, infinite billions of life forms are thrown into chaos and destruction. Eventually it all boils down to this: fifty-nine million years later, a caveman, one of a dozen on the entire world, goes hunting wild boar or saber-toothed tiger for food. But you, friend, have stepped on all the tigers in that region. By stepping on one single mouse. So the caveman starves. And the caveman, please note, is not just any expendable man, no.

24. The Butterfly Effect He is an entire future nation. From his loins would have sprung ten sons. From their loins one hundred sons, and thus onward to a civilization. Destroy this one man, and you destroy a race, a people, an entire history of life. It is comparable to slaying some of Adam’s grandchildren. The stomp of your foot, on one mouse, could start an earthquake, the effects of which could shake our earth and destinies down through Time, to their very foundations. With the death of that one caveman, a billion others yet unborn are throttled in the womb.

25. The Butterfly Effect Perhaps Rome never rises on its seven hills. Perhaps Europe is forever a dark forest, and only Asia waxes healthy and teeming. Step on a mouse and you crush the Pyramids. Step on a mouse and you leave your print, like a Grand Canyon, across Eternity. Queen Elizabeth might never be born, Washington might not cross the Delaware, there might never be a United States at all. So be careful. Stay on the Path. Never step off!”

26. The Climax

27. When He Left, The Sign Read:

28. Things Change But the immediate thing was the sign painted on the office wall, the same sign he had read earlier today on first entering. Somehow, the sign had changed: TYME SEFARI INC. SEFARIS TU ANY YEER EN THE PAST. YU NAIM THE ANIMALL. WEE TAEK YU THAIR. YU SHOOT ITT. The point is that language itself had evolved differently based on one tiny butterfly.

29. H e did not move. Eyes shut, he waited, shivering. He heard Travis breathe loud in the room; he heard Travis shift his rifle, click the safety catch, and raise the weapon.

30. The Butterfly Effect

31. The plot of “A Sound of Thunder” is based on a theoretical cause-and-effect chain that might look something like this: A Sound of Thunder Reading Skills: Cause and Effect Time-traveling human steps on butterfly in past. Butterfly population declines. Entire ecosystem is upset. Humans evolve in different environment. Modern civilization is altered.

32. A Sound of Thunder Summary This science fiction story begins in the year 2055, the day after an election in which Keith, a democrat, wins out over Deutscher, a fascist. Time travel is possible and Eckels, a wealthy hunter, goes, goes on a prehistoric safari to shoot a dinosaur. As Eckels’s party travels back in time, Travis, the leader, warns the hunters not to stray from a prelaid anti-gravity Path, theorizing that the minutest damage to the environment could have serious reverberations for the future.

33. A Sound of Thunder Summary Even the tyrannosaur they are going to shoot is chosen because it would have died minutes later anyway. When the time comes to make the kill, Eckels panics and runs away, stumbling off the Path. Travis is furious. After the party returns to 2055, Eckels senses that things are subtly different. He then discovers a dead butterfly on the sole of his shoe. After finding out that now Deutscher has triumphed over Keith, Eckels realizes the magnitude of his actions – he has changed the course of his country’s history. The story’s climax comes when Travis shoots Eckels.

34. A Sound of Thunder Rich with simile and metaphor Explores science—the chaos theory Gives the reader so much to think about— What if one small event in your life had changed? How would it affect who you are today? Are you making negative choices today that will affect generations to come?