Download “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury Skeleton Notes KEY

“A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury
Skeleton Notes KEY
Vocabulary
annihilate, expendable, depression, paradox, delirium, resilient, remit, revoke, primeval, subliminal
Plot
1. __Eckels___________ is the protagonist of this story. At the opening of the tale, he has arrived at
_Time Safari Inc._, a company that specializes in ___safaris in the past_________.
2. Some words that describe __Eckels________ would be as follows: ____rich_______,
___arrogant__________, and ____shallow__________.
3. __Time Safari__________ doesn’t guarantee that clients will _______survive___________, but it does
guarantee ____the animals (dinosaurs)_____.
4. ___Travis_______ is the guide on this excursion to __Jurassic Period/past/60 million years____.
5. The first rule ___Time Safari Inc.__ gives for the trip is “______don’t shoot unless given permission______.”
The penalty for violating this rule is __$10,000 and government action______________.
6. The discussion of __the election____ between Travis and Eckels is an example of __foreshadowing____.
7. The two candidates in the resent election were ____Keith________ and ___Deutscher________.
8. The hunters will be traveling to __60 million years ago__. He is given the option to __leave with their money__
before they make the trip back in the machine.
9. Eckels plans to shoot a ___Tyrannosaurus rex__________.
10. The people in the time machine with Eckels are ____Travis___________________, the Safari Guide;
__Lesperance__, his assistant; __Billings___________, a fellow hunter; and _____Kramer_________,
another hunter.
11. The second rule of the trip is to ___not step off the metal path___________, which hovers six inches above the
ground. They must follow this rule so that ____they don’t kill anything important_________________.
12. They cannot change anything about their surroundings except what they are specifically there to kill because it
will trigger__Butterfly/Ripple/Domino Effect___, meaning that _____one small action will ripple and magnify
over time with catastrophic results______________________________________________________.
13. ___Lesperance______ went back in time before the trip to be sure that ___they wouldn’t change the future
because of something they did in the past (i.e. kill an animal)__________________.
14. ___Lesperance_______ studied the ___Tyrannosaurus rex_______________ for ____its entire existence____
until it met its end by ___a tree falling on it____________.
15. They trail the men are to follow is marked by __a raised path_______________. The beast they are hunting has
been marked with a ___a red paint bomb______.
16. The travelers won’t run into themselves in the past because _____time won’t allow them to do so___________.
It creates a ___paradox__________.
17. When the dinosaur finally appears, Eckels ___panics_________. _____Travis___________ tells him to
go____back to the time machine______, but he ends up ___running off the path into the jungle___________.
The following inference can be made about Eckels based on his actions: ________________________________
_______he is going to change the future because he ran off the path__________________.
18. After the dinosaur was killed, __Billings______________ and ____Kramer______________ threw up. The group
found ___Eckels_______________ in the ___time machine_______. ___Travis______________ wants to leave
____ Eckels_________ in the past, but ___Lesperance stops him because he could alter the past further____.
19. ____Travis__________________ forced Eckels to _____retrieve the bullets_______________ from the
__dinosaur’s skull__. He must do this because _the bullets don’t belong in the past and can’t be left behind__.
20. The significance of the years mentioned in the return trip is as follows: (important American History dates)
a. 1492
Christopher Columbus
b. 1776
American Revolution/Declaration of Independence
c. 1812
War of 1812/Second War for Independence
21. When the group returns to their present, things are very different: ___Deutcher__________ is the president,
the ___language________ has changed, and the setting is now __slightly altered________.
22. All of the changes to their present were caused by ____Eckels stepping on a butterfly_______________.
23. At the end of the story, we can infer than ____Travis shoots and kills Eckels_______________________.