Similarities Between A Sound Of Thunder And To Kill A Mockingbird

Most people have read a book in school. Most people typically don’t like those books; Even so, the books that are read in school teach things that are valuable and relevant throughout life. An example of a distinguishable school book would be “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee it is a book that has a recognizable name, but due to people associating it with school can sometimes be dreaded or overlooked. Likewise, “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury is not as popular as “To Kill a Mockingbird”, but most people would recognize the author Ray Bradbury as the author of “Fahrenheit 451” and turn away from reading it. “To Kill a Mockingbird” is centered around Atticus Finch, a Caucasian lawyer, defending Tom Robinson, an African American who has

been wrongly accused of raping a woman. The book takes place in 1920’s Alabama where racism was still quite large. “A Sound of Thunder” takes place in the future where Eckels goes in a time machine to hunt a dinosaur, while in the past he steps on a butterfly and ultimately changes the future. Both “To KIll a Mockingbird” and “A Sound of Thunder” are valuable and relevant to our society and education system today.
Valuable or having value has an opinion based definition, but both “A Sound of Thunder” and “To Kill a Mockingbird” are valuable to the education system based on the dictionary definition of valuable.

The definition of valuable is extremely useful or important. Stories in general are useful and important because of the theme or message portrayed from the story. In other words, people are able to learn things through stories because only so much can be learned from experience. The value in “A Sound of Thunder” is the theme or moral of the story. After Eckels ignores the rules and leaves the assigned path he steps on a butterfly, and when he goes back to the present he has ultimately changed the timeline. Through the story readers learn to follow the directions of people who have had more experience than them; readers also learn that the things they do today could change the future forever. This story is useful because it’s hard to see change when you're living in it, so the sharp contrast of past to future helps readers get the theme from something that would have been hard to learn from personal experience. “A Sound of Thunder” is valuable to the education system because it provides an example of actions having major life changing effects that people wouldn’t be able to realize through their own experiences. Likewise, “To Kill a Mockingbird” teaches readers through the example of the characters. Through Atticus Finch readers learn to do the right thing, he defended Tom

Robinson, even if there is no hope or it seems impossible to visualize doing, the right thing is always the right choice. Life has changed since the 1920’s, people are more accepting now, so readers may not be able to learn the theme of “To Kill a Mockingbird” through their own experiences. The education system needs “To Kill a Mockingbird” because it not only has the theme of doing the right thing when it seems impossible, but also shows that even if you don’t succeed in your endeavor it can change the way other people continue to think of the problem. It is okay to fail while doing the right thing because it might just persuade someone to see the right as well. Both “A Sound of Thunder” and “To Kill a Mockingbird” are valuable to the education system because they teach important lessons through stories that sometimes can’t be learned from experiences.
Relevance is a general term, even so both “A Sound of Thunder” and “To Kill a Mockingbird” are relevant in everyday life.

Unlike valuable, relevance is more about being able to apply themes of stories to life than just learning a lesson from a story. In “A Sound of Thunder” Eckels and the reader was able to learn that actions have consequences, but the story takes place in the future, so it’s relevance to today is sometimes blown over. Ray Bradbury, the author, was trying to get across a message through a story, which he did, but the story isn’t important unless it can be applied to everyone no matter when it’s read. People can use the theme of the story to think about things before they do them, big or small, everything impacts someone in a way, shape, or form. Therefore, people can apply the theme in “A Sound of Thunder” today to think before doing something, which will overall better life for everyone if consequences are thought of before thoughts are acted upon. Similarly, “To Kill a Mockingbird” has themes that can acted upon to create a better future for people. Most people like to quit when they have failed and not see it through to the end, but through “To KIll a Mockingbird” people can learn from Atticus’ example that giving in when they feel they’ve like lost will make it worse. To not give up completely so the problem can have some progress to the goal instead of wasted time and wasted progress. At the end of the trial the verdict was Tom Robinson was guilty, but

the triumph was that it took extensive deliberation for the jurors to come to that conclusion. Although Atticus didn’t change anything completely he got people to question their values and think about what is right. In the end the values stayed the same but that was the start of change for people. Failure, sadly, is part of life, but if people apply the theme they learned from “To Kill a Mockingbird” they would realize they may have failed but they also made small progress along the way. Both “A Sound of Thunder” and “To Kill a Mockingbird” are relevant in everyday life.
“A Sound of Thunder” and “To Kill a Mockingbird” are both relevant and valuable to our society and education system. People can learn and apply the theme of “A Sound of Thunder”, actions having consequences to better their lives. Not all failure is total failure, the theme of “To Kill a Mockingbird”, can also be learned and applied to life to better lives. Overall the books read in school may be boring, but they teach things that would be difficult to learn through experiences, and the things we learn from the stories can be used throughout life.