Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury was often accused of being a Luddite: that is to say, someone with a knee-jerk hostility towards new technology. But this was always an unfair criticism, as Bradbury was never...

Ray Bradbury uses visual, auditory, olfactory, and tactile imagery in his story. Auditory imagery appeals to our sense of hearing. Here are examples of auditory imagery from the story: Sounds like...

The Mechanical Hound is an impressive piece of technology used by the fireman institution to track down political dissidents and incapacitate them. In Part One, Montag arrives at work and walks...

In "A Sound of Thunder," Mr. Travis is an employee of Time Safari Inc. He is a safari guide, tasked with telling people what they can shoot and when to take the shot. It is also his responsibility...

The theme of Bradbury's short story is related to how everything in has a purpose and there is a causal connection for all of the events that subsume us. There are things interlinked to a degree...

There are several external conflicts in the short story "A Sound of Thunder." The dangerous Tyrannosaurus Rex that threatens Eckels's life is an example of an external man vs. nature conflict. The...

In the opening of his 1951 short story, Bradbury makes the unusual choices of using several infinitive verb phrases ("to enter . . . to put . . . to step") and second person point-of-view ("you,...

The irony in "The Veldt" is that the family has automated factors added to their house in order to simplify and ease their lives so that they have more time to spend with each other. However,...

As with most of Bradbury's works, the symbolism can be tied back to man's basic quest to figure out who he is and how to survive. Often the sun also symbolizes a promise of tomorrow or immortality...

Foreshadowing refers to a technique by which writers give advance hints about key plot points which will emerge later on within the story. Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder" follows Eckels, a time...

When the sun comes out on Venus every seven years, it is an event that everyone in the story looks forward to seeing. It constantly rains on Venus, and the citizens view the sun coming out as a...

A theme throughout Bradbury's work is the need to for humans to be in control of the powerful technology we have developed or might develop in the future. We should handle it with care and not...

In Ray Bradbury's short story "Embroidery," women work frantically to sew back the world that surrounds them before it ends in an apocalyptic manner: Each woman looked to her own hands as if...

Bradbury initially creates suspense when one of the Time Safari officials tells Eckels that their company does not guarantee his safety during the expedition. Eckels's expedition to the distant...

Ray Bradbury's short story is set in A.D. 2053, where the vast majority of citizens remain inside their homes during the evenings and watch television. The atmosphere of the city in the evening is...

This short story has a dual theme and is a most interesting study of a much anticipated event during the time in which the story is set. The time period of the setting is integral to...

When we think of point of view in terms of literature there are three different types that are used mainly by authors: first person, the omniscient point of view (all-knowing) and third person...

Because Leonard Mead does not behave in a conventional manner by engaging in outmoded activities, he is taken to the Psychiatric Center for Research on Regressive Tendencies. When Leonard Mead...

The climax of a story is the point at which the drama or tension is most acute. "Climax" comes from a Greek word meaning "ladder," so think of the reader climbing the rungs of the story and the...

The falling action in the story happens right after the climax. After the students lock Margot in the closet for her statements about the sun, they actually experience the sunlight. Their teacher...

Well, when we use the word "diction" we actually refer to something as simple as the choice of words that an author used and the kind of effect that those words create. Therefore, if you are after...

While Mildred and Guy Montag are alike in that they are both conditioned products of their society, there are still remnants of genuine feeling, desire, and intellectual curiosity in Montag,...

Ray Bradbury no doubt placed the setting for his 1954 short story “All Summer in a Day” on Venus because of the centrality of atmospheric conditions to his story of a nine-year-old girl and her...

The most re-published short story in science fiction history, Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder" deals with the idea of time travel and how subtle changes in the past can drastically affect the...

Ray Bradbury was a writer who worked primarily within the genres of science fiction and fantasy. He was a master of the short story format. Indeed, it should also be noted that one of his most...

"A Sound of Thunder" Bradbury employs metaphor, simile, parallelism, irony, and paradox. In the exposition of the story Bradbury writes in metaphor and simile, using parallelism to enhance the...

This quote is actually quite a horrifying one, if you grasp its meaning well. At the end of the novel, Montag is on the run from the law and from the mechanical hound, who has already stabbed him...

In "The Flying Machine," published by Ray Bradbury in 1953, the literal danger the Emperor perceives in the creation of the flying machine is that this innovation will cause people to move away...

The opening paragraphs of Bradbury's short story give a good sampling of the kinds of literary devices that are represented in "A Sound of Thunder." He opens right at the start with sensory...

“The Pedestrian” describes a world where everyone stays in their houses and watches television, never interacting with the world. The resolution is when Leonard Mead is arrested for walking at...

In some respects, writing a thesis is actually one of the later steps of an essay: ultimately, a thesis is a statement of an argument or interpretation. With that in mind, the starting point isn't...

Montag and his team are called into an older lady's house, to burn it and remove the old lady. She had a house filled with books; her neighbor had turned her in. Most people have been removed...

First, it is interesting to note that Ray Bradbury enjoyed an... ...incredibly prolific career that spans countless styles, formats, and genres... But what is most interesting with regard to this...

The famous science fiction story "A Sound of Thunder" by Ray Bradbury tells of a safari that travels back in time to hunt the terrible predatory dinosaur, Tyrannosaurus Rex. Although from the...

In Ray Bradbury’s “The Flying Machine,” the underlying themes revolve around the notion of technological advancement in society. Specifically, the story deals with the notion that unchecked...

In this story, Eckels has gone to the Time Safari company. He wants to take one of their trips, which involves going back in their time machine and shooting a dinosaur. He is told by the man at...

If you reconsider the basic outlines of the plot, I think you will start to detect the theme of self-destructive obsession and fear of mortality that runs through Bradbury's story "The Skeleton."...

The Emperor's garden of metal and jewels represents his kingdom in miniature as it is right now. It is a representation of beautiful stasis, of the Emperor's desire to control his kingdom so that...

Jealousy is a theme of "All Summer in a Day" because the other children are jealous of Margot and her experience with the sun. Margot, unlike the other children in her class, was born on Earth. She...

In "There Will Come Soft Rains," Ray Bradbury describes the nursery as a garishly colorful artificial environment: Animals took shape: yellow giraffes, blue lions, pink antelopes, lilac panthers...

The quote "There are times...when one must lose a little beauty if one is to keep what little beauty one already has," from "The Flying Machine," by Ray Bradbury, is a paradoxical statement. The...

Leonard Mead is a rebel in the sense that he is doing something that in the world he is living in is illegal, but is not a rebel in the sense that he is actively opposing the law. He is just doing...

Ray Bradbury's "The Golden Kite, the Silver Wind" was published in 1953, during the Cold War, and is an allegorical story about the nuclear arms race between the United States of America and the...

While there are several main themes portrayed in this sci-fi short story, perhaps the most central is the idea that humans can be so naive that we even fool ourselves, yet this isn’t always a bad...

Some examples of figurative language from the story are as follows. nothing’s too good for our children This phrase actually means that all things are good enough for the children. Children are...

Each question must be listed separately. I can answer only one. Also, please note that this is my opinion, as your answer should be when you address it. With opinions, there are generally no wrong...

Ray Bradbury is a master of using figures of speech to make his writing more descriptive. His use of metaphors, personification, similes, etc. enhances the reader’s experiences with his stories...

Near the end of this story, the emperor executes the inventor of a beautiful flying machine rather than allowing this innovation to destabilize his country. Before that occurs, we have several...

You may be interested in the quotes below. "We burned a thousand books. We burned a woman. "Well?" The parlor was exploding with sound. "We burned copies of Dante and Swift and Marcus Aurelius."...

Although Bradbury does not specifically state what happens to Eckles, we can assume that Eckles is killed by Travis. Discovering that Eckles has indeed brought back something from the future and...