<A Sound of Thunder>, by Ray Bradbury  

Rating: 8/10   

    This short story was a decent, enjoyable piece to start off our journey of World Literature. It brought up a classical, yet always entertaining theme: Time travel. I loved how the language and result of the election changed just because of a death of a butterfly. It could seem that the story is too exaggerated, but considering that they traveled way back to when the dinosaurs roamed the earth, it is possible that a tiny change of the past led to a tremendous influence on the future. This is called the "butterfly effect." It was impressive to see the author setting the creature that Eckels killed as a butterfly, relating the situation to the butterfly effect. 

    It was hard to see Eckels as a hero that we expect. He was a thoughtless and selfish coward, not able to fulfill his responsibility of taking the time travel. He left his teammates and fled from the battle against T-rex, carelessly killing a butterfly. I think this was Bradbury's intention to use Eckels as a tool to strongly show us the butterfly effect. One's irresponsible action will be followed by substantial consequences, and even the smallest factors can contribute to a large change in the whole. 

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