A Sound of Thunder

I just recently read Ray Bradbury's A Sound of Thunder as an in-class assignment. It takes place in the future and is about a group of men who use a time machine to travel back to when dinosaurs were still living. The author includes multiple conflicts in the plot, which creates suspense for the reader. I enjoyed the story, but I couldn't stop thinking about one thing; couldn't the group's presence in the past alone disrupt the carefully arranged events that lead to the future? The tiniest of animals could have been scared off by them or their gunshots, causing it to take a different path than it had intended and, in turn, changing the whole chain of events that lead up to the future. Another point I'd like to make is the fact that, though the dinosaur was meant to die and this is why it was supposedly "okay" to kill it at that precise moment, it seems extremely immoral to do so. Instead of being killed by a natural cause, like the fallen tree, it was attacked and shot down by a group of blood-thirsty men who wanted a picture to take home as a "trophy."

The end of A Sound of Thunder remains a mystery though, as the final words were "There was a sound of thunder," by which the reader is expected to imply that Eckles was shot. But this sentence could suggest alternative ending such as Travis killing himself or even there simply (but unlikely in my opinion) being a thunderstorm. Either way, the way it was written was meant to keep the reader thinking. It sure kept me thinking!