"TIME, AN ILLUSION: DISTORTING TEMPORAL REALITIES IN RAY BRADBURY'S SELECTED SHORT FICTIONS"

Abstract

This study is about the textual time that has experienced a great change during the postmodern age. Since the time of Aristotle, the textual time, both subjective (inner time of a character) and objective (biological time of the character’s surroundings), has been in a chronological order. There was a perfect sequence of cause and effect. However, with the rise of technological advancements in modern and postmodern ages, time has become a fluid concept, no longer fixed but an illusion that can be manipulated. The same thing is also adopted by literary figures in the postmodern age, like Ray Bradbury. Postmodern authors, including Bradbury, played with time in both subjective and objective ways. They distorted it for playful purposes and emphasized the fractured, unpredictable nature of reality. This research focuses on two of Bradbury's short fictions, A Sound of Thunder (1984) and The Flying Machine (1953), to demonstrate how temporal distortion is achieved through techniques like time travel and anachronism. In A Sound of Thunder, Bradbury explores time travel and the butterfly effect, that how a small action in the past can alter the future. In The Flying Machine, Bradbury uses anachronism to introduce a futuristic invention in an ancient setting, further distorting the flow of time. Thus, both the stories distort the temporality while playing with it.