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Sound Of Thunder Foreshadowing

Decent Essays

Change is inevitable and can be as quick as a blink of an eye. Although the outcomes may be in one’s favor, it is not certain. In the fictional short story, “A Sound of Thunder,” Ray Bradbury describes how change is significant to life. In the story, Eckels, the protagonist, travels back in time and drastically changes the future by altering the past. Bradbury uses several literary devices such as foreshadowing, imagery, and symbolism to illustrate that frivolous decisions will also affect the course of others’ lives. Foreshadowing is frequently utilized in the short story. This device is present to illustrate that all occurrences in life are the effects of one’s previous choices by hinting that something in the future will change because of someone’s actions. …show more content…

Symbolism is integrated into “A Sound of Thunder” to develop the author’s argument. It helps portray the idea that one small decision has a huge impact on future events by using physical objects to substitute the concepts of time. Nearing the end of the story, everyone arrives back to their present time, but something seems askew and distinctly different. Noticing the dirt on his shoe, Eckels goes to examine it and notices a small creature that was “Embedded in the mud, glistening green and gold and black, was a butterfly. Very beautiful and very dead” (Bradbury 24). The butterfly represents the future of civilization because once Eckels destroys the butterfly’s life, he also alters the course of time. Through the symbolization of colors, one assumes that the butterfly depicts fertility, prosperity, and the unknown because Bradbury describes it as green, gold, and black. However, it will all change when the butterfly dies and this is shown from the substitution of presidents, from a favorable, well respected leader to a cruel dictator. Therefore symbolism supports the idea that time is a delicate thing with major

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