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Would You Visit the PAST If You Could? Video link at Comparing A Sound of Thunder thinkcentral.com Texts Short Story by Ray Bradbury From Here to There: The Physics of Time Travel Magazine Article by Brad Stone The Time Machine Movie Poster Would you visit the PAST if you could? Virginia Standards of Learning Imagine that you could board a time machine and travel into the 9.3f Extend general and specialized past. In “A Sound of Thunder,” the main character does just that. vocabulary through speaking, His journey, however, has unexpected consequences. reading, and writing. 9.4e Explain the relationship between and among elements of literature: characters, plot, setting, tone, point of view, and What’s the Connection? theme. 9.4m Use reading strategies You’ve probably already encountered time machines in books, to monitor comprehension throughout the reading process. comics, TV shows, movies, and other media. As you read the selections that follow, you will again ponder the phenomenon of time travel—as both a compelling premise for science fiction stories and a real scientific possibility. 36 VA_L09PE-u01s1-brAsth.indd 36 3/22/11 4:18:42 PM Meet the Author text analysis: foreshadowing Foreshadowing is a writer’s use of clues to hint at events that will Ray Bradbury happen later in a story. By using this technique Bradbury creates born 1920 suspense, the feeling of tension or excitement that readers Social Critic for the Future experience when they want to know what will happen next. A major writer in the genres of science Foreshadowing often occurs when a character makes an unusual fiction and fantasy, Ray Bradbury explores the statement or issues a strong warning, as in this example: future, outer space—and the human heart. Over his long career, he has lived to see much “So be careful. Stay on the Path. Never step off!” science fiction become science fact. His most chilling stories comment on the human Watch for other examples of foreshadowing as you read consequences of progress and often reflect Bradbury’s story. the ironies of life. Review: Plot A Library Education Bradbury fervently believes in the importance of reading. “I didn’t go to college, but when I reading skill: analyze seuence graduated from high school I went down to A story about time travel presents some interesting challenges. the local library,” he has said. For ten years If you were to create a timeline to track the characters’ travels, Bradbury spent two or three days each week it would go backward and then forward again. Yet the events in reading in the local public library in Los the story are presented in the order in which they happen to the Angeles, California. characters. As you read the story, keep track of the sequence of Not Quite a Technophobe events by creating a chart like the one shown. Record important This master of science fiction writes his stories events before, during, and after the time safari. on a typewriter rather than a computer, scorns the Internet, and has never even driven a car. Before During After Still, Bradbury is a strong advocate of space Eckels prepares to travel because he views it as “life-enhancing.” travel back in time to background to the story hunt dinosaurs. The Fourth Dimension Time travel has been a popular idea in Review: Make Inferences, Predict science fiction ever since the British author H. G. Wells wrote his short novel The Time Machine in 1895. In the novel, Wells vocabulary in context suggested that in addition to the three See which of the following words from the story you already dimensions of length, height, and width, know. Place each word in the appropriate column. Then write there was a fourth dimension of duration, a brief definition of each word you’re familiar with. or time. Wells speculated that if a machine could be invented to move along the fourth dimension, travel backward and forward in w o r d annihilate malfunctioning subliminal time would be possible. list correlate paradox undulate expendable resilient Author infinitesimally stagnating Online Go to thinkcentral.com. Know Well Think I Know Don’t Know KEYWORD: HML9-37 Complete the activities in your Reader/Writer Notebook. 37 VA_L09PE-u01s1-brAsth.indd 37 3/22/11 4:18:24 PM a soundsound ofof thunderthunder thunderray bradbury The sign on the wall seemed to quaver under a film of sliding warm water. Eckels felt his eyelids blink over his stare, and the sign burned in this momentary darkness: Examine this picture. What information can time safari, inc. you infer about the safaris to any year in the past. world it portrays? you name the animal. we take you there. you shoot it. A warm phlegm gathered in Eckels’s throat; he swallowed and pushed it 10 down. The muscles around his mouth formed a smile as he put his hand slowly out upon the air, and in that hand waved a check for ten thousand dollars to the man behind the desk. “Does this safari guarantee I come back alive?” “We guarantee nothing,” said the official, “except the dinosaurs.” He turned. “This is Mr. Travis, your Safari Guide in the Past. He’ll tell you a FORESHADOWING what and where to shoot. If he says no shooting, no shooting. If you disobey Reread lines 13–18. What instructions, there’s a stiff penalty of another ten thousand dollars, plus might the man’s warning possible government action, on your return.” a to Eckels foreshadow? 38 unit 1: narrative structure VA_L09PE-u01s1-Asthun.indd 38 3/22/11 4:15:01 PM Comparing Texts VA_L09PE-u01s1-Asthun.indd 39 3/22/11 4:14:46 PM Eckels glanced across the vast office at a mass and tangle, a snaking and 20 humming of wires and steel boxes, at an aurora1 that flickered now orange, now silver, now blue. There was a sound like a gigantic bonfire burning all of Time, all the years and all the parchment calendars, all the hours piled high and set aflame. A touch of the hand and this burning would, on the instant, beautifully reverse itself. Eckels remembered the wording in the advertisements to the letter. Out of chars and ashes, out of dust and coals, like golden salamanders, the old years, the green years, might leap; roses sweeten the air, white hair turn Irish-black, wrinkles vanish; all, everything fly back to seed, flee death, rush down to their beginnings, suns rise in western skies and set in glorious easts, 30 moons eat themselves opposite to the custom, all and everything cupping one in another like Chinese boxes,2 rabbits into hats, all and everything returning to the fresh death, the seed death, the green death, to the time before the beginning. A touch of a hand might do it, the merest touch of a hand. “Unbelievable.” Eckels breathed, the light of the Machine on his thin face. “A real Time Machine.” He shook his head. “Makes you think. If the election had gone badly yesterday, I might be here now running away from the results. Thank God Keith won. He’ll make a fine President of the United States.” “Yes,” said the man behind the desk. “We’re lucky. If Deutscher3 had gotten in, we’d have the worst kind of dictatorship. There’s an anti-everything man 40 for you, a militarist, anti-Christ, anti-human, anti-intellectual. People called us up, you know, joking but not joking. Said if Deutscher became President they wanted to go live in 1492. Of course it’s not our business to conduct Escapes, but to form Safaris. Anyway, Keith’s President now. All you got to worry about is—” b b FORESHADOWING “Shooting my dinosaur,” Eckels finished it for him. What might the “A Tyrannosaurus rex. The Tyrant Lizard, the most incredible monster in conversation about history. Sign this release. Anything happens to you, we’re not responsible. the election results foreshadow? Those dinosaurs are hungry.” Eckels flushed angrily. “Trying to scare me!” 50 “Frankly, yes. We don’t want anyone going who’ll panic at the first shot. Six Safari leaders were killed last year, and a dozen hunters. We’re here to give you the severest thrill a real hunter ever asked for. Traveling you back sixty million years to bag the biggest game in all of Time. Your personal check’s still there. Tear it up.” Mr. Eckels looked at the check. His fingers twitched. c c plOt “Good luck,” said the man behind the desk. “Mr. Travis, he’s all yours.” What have you learned They moved silently across the room, taking their guns with them, toward about the characters’ situation in the the Machine, toward the silver metal and the roaring light. exposition? 1. aurora (E-rôrPE): a shifting, streaming display of light, like those sometimes seen in the sky in the northern and southern regions of the earth. 2. Chinese boxes: a set of boxes, each of which fits neatly inside the next larger one. 3. Deutscher (doiPchEr). 40 unit 1: narrative structure VA_L09PE-u01s1-Asthun.indd 40 3/22/11 4:13:37 PM Comparing Texts irst a day and then a night and then a day and then a night, then it was 60 day-night-day-night-day. A week, a month, a year, a decade! a.d. 2055. a.d. 2019. 1999! 1957! Gone! The Machine roared. FThey put on their oxygen helmets and tested the intercoms. Eckels swayed on the padded seat, his face pale, his jaw stiff. He felt the trembling in his arms, and he looked down and found his hands tight on the new rifle.
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