43 pages • 1 hour read
Ray BradburyA Sound Of Thunder
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1952A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Literary Devices
Figurative Language
Figurative language encompasses a range of techniques like metaphor, simile, and personification, all of which incorporate non-literal elements that give the reader new insights or understanding. Bradbury’s frequent use of figurative language adds to the vivid descriptions of the scene, particularly notable in the passages in which the characters are in the past. He uses metaphor and personification to enrich the scenes, help readers imagine themselves in the strange landscape of the past and to imbue animals, objects, and the jungle itself with a sense of aliveness to convey the menace and wonder of the setting.
On several occasions, Bradbury uses metaphor and personification to compare nature and technology. He toys with, and at times blurs, this distinction as he writes of the time machine “howling” and each of the Tyrannosaurus’s legs as a “piston,” attributing living qualities to the non-living machine and vice versa. When the Tyrannosaurus dies, Bradbury describes its body shutting down as a “a steam shovel at quitting time” (116) and refers to its delicate “watchmaker’s arms” (112).
Bradbury maintains the metaphor of time as fire throughout the story, describing it initially as “a bonfire burning all of time” (103). As Time Safari wrote in their advertisement, time travel enables time to reverse, back to the “fresh death, seed death” (103) from “ashes and coals” (103). This image of the past as green, lush, and fresh is furthered by the descriptions of the ancient jungle of millions of years past.
Juxtaposition
Juxtaposition is a literary technique in which opposing characters, places, ideas, or other elements are placed side-by-side to highlight their differences. Three important examples of juxtaposition are Eckels and Travis, the butterfly and the T-rex, and Keith and Deutscher. Eckels and Travis are very different in temperament and character, and in particular, care taken toward the past. Eckels is arrogant, thinking himself an experienced hunter and not taking the situation very seriously as he “playfully” aims his gun at Pterodactyls. Travis, on the other hand, is calm in the face of danger and takes the rules very seriously. Their differences ultimately serve to highlight the importance of the rules.
The Tyrannosaurus rex and the butterfly are both important influencers on how the past comes to be changed. The two animals are about as different as two can be, demonstrating that both the large and loud and the small and delicate can have a meaningful impact on history.
Finally, Keith and Deutscher are juxtaposed through the election in which both are candidates, the former as the democratic candidate, and the latter as the authoritarian one. These characters serve to highlight these two different modes of political thought.
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By Ray Bradbury
