How to quote Sound of Thunder

Language of Ray Bradbury

Authors use magnificent language and description to enhance their stories. In "A Sound of Thunder", Ray Bradbury uses descriptive language to enhance the reading experience. Bradbury uses detailed description, foreshadowing, and symbolism to make the stories a first hand experience for his readers.

Bradbury uses amazing description to make the reader feel as if they are in the story, not just reading it. For instance, he uses tremendous detail in "A Sound of Thunder" when he writes "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"(17) Bradbury is recounting what Eckels sees upon entering the Time Safari, Inc. office. Once again, he could have simply stated that Ecklels walks into an office and sees a time machine, but he does much more. He defines the colorful glows coming off of the time mechanism, and the machinery lying about in heaps around the floor to make the reader feel as if they are the ones stepping into that office for the first time.

Bradbury also uses the tool of foreshadowing to help the reader better understand the story and plot line and to let the reader know a little bit more about the mystery of a story without giving anything away too quickly. Bradbury uses foreshadowing in "A Sound of Thunder" to give the reader an idea of what might happen in the future. For instance, Eckels shows his insensitive personality when he states "‘So they’re dead. So what?’"(20). An another example of foreshadowing is the sign shown at the beginning of the story. This sign is grammatically correct. However, the same sign which Eckels notices when they return later that day is filled with errors. This foreshadows that something has changed, i.e. a different person has been elected President. This is significant because of Bradbury’s description of the two candidates at the story’s beginning. One is highly educated and the second finds education to be less important.

Bradbury establishes his characters’ personalities through dialogue. He lets you know that Eckels is boastful on the outside, but scared on the inside by the way he speaks. A reader can tell that Eckel’s priorities are not in the right place, which serves as a foreshadowing of future events.

To sum up, Bradbury uses detail to make the reader feel as if he or she is the main character embarking on adventures. He uses foreshadowing to give hints to the reader of future events, and makes use of symbolism (e.g.Time machine, Butterfly effect) to strengthen the stories’ plot lines. On the whole, Ray Bradbury uses special skills to enhance his remarkable stories