When you say "butterfly effect," I assume that you mean
the idea that one change that seems really unimportant (like a butterfly flapping its
wings) can lead (through a bunch of intermediate steps) to a huge change later on (like
a big storm). This is really a major point of this
story.
In the story, all that Eckels does wrong is to go
off the path. While he is off it, he apparently steps on and kills a butterfly.
Somehow, millions of years in the future, this change in history has led to a big change
in the culture of the United States. Now America has become kind of Nazified when it
hadn't been when Eckels' safari went back in time.
When
Eckels sees the dead butterfly, he sort of knows (but doesn't want to believe) what he's
done:
It fell
to the floor, an exquisite thing, a small thing that could upset balances and knock down
a line of small dominoes and then big dominoes and then gigantic dominoes, all down the
years across Time. Eckels' mind whirled. It couldn't change things. Killing one
butterfly couldn't be that important! Could
it?
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