Paul 1

Trevor Paul

Mrs. Stanford

AP Language

8 January 2021

The Butterfly Effect

The butterfly effect is the thought that small changes in our reality now can make big

differences in the future and change our course of history. It is the belief that small actions can

have large consequences that often influence many of the decisions we make today when looking

forward to the future, such that taking fifteen minutes out of your day to take a walk or work on

something special can lead to large changes in your life, often for the better. Over the course of

the last few weeks, I read The Woman Who Smashed Codes by Jason Fagone. This is a book

about actions and their effects and consequences on the course of history and the world around

us. The book tells the story of a young woman, Elizabeth Friedman, who was one of the biggest

influences and did most of the work of cracking the german’s codes in WWII and likely had one

of the biggest influences on the allies winning the war in 1945. This book shows the effects of

small and consistent actions and how they can cause long term effects as well as exemplify the

butterfly effect and how it works in the world. With this same theme, it also shows why and how

we should think about our actions at least a little before we go through with them as they could

cause consequences down the line. It does this by showing how these little actions make big

differences by showing how one person working with many many others could accomplish

things that likely changed history forever and for all that have followed in her footsteps.

The butterfly effect is the idea that the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Texas can cause a

hurricane in Brazil. It’s the idea that small differences in the world now can cause drastic
 Paul 2

changes in our future, as well as that small actions in the now, should be taken into consideration

as the future that they could cause could be undesirable. I believe that this may be one of the

main focuses of The Woman Who Smashed Codes, but not in the same way that I have explained

it. In the book, the cause and long-term effects of many actions of individuals are seen but often

have positive consequences but many others have negative consequences. Positive consequences

can come in many ways, often a promotion for repeated performance or maybe a long healthy

life from eating right and exercising from a very young. On page 155, the author states that they

needed something to help them solve a code and that they then decided to do the simplest thing

that came to mind, they built a library (Fagone 155). This library then goes on to be an important

tool to solving many of the things that come their way and could definitely be looked at as a

crucial part of how they were able to win the war. This shows small thoughts can turn into

actions that make big changes. It shows the positive consequences of small decisions at a time in

the past as the world would have been very different today if the outcome of WWII was

different.

The future should always be considered when looking at your actions. In many cases, the

future is often unpredictable. Small changes now can lead to bigger consequences beyond what

anyone may think at the moment. Things like this can be seen today with Covid-19 starting as a

small isolated incident in China before spreading to possibly one of the biggest historical events

of many people’s lifetimes. This happens in other areas as well, such as the spread of and

diversity of race and religion today relating back to European colonists from hundreds of years

ago. These small changes can lead to big changes. These small actions are demonstrated in The

Woman Who Smashed Codes as small plot points in the book and characters think about how

these small actions could affect others in the future. “Confronting Mrs. Gallup seemed a little
 Paul 3

cruel. She had worked too many years in a single direction to admit her compass was broken.

She had treated them both with kindness. They tried talking to Fabyan instead.” (Fagone 65).

This is a consideration of small actions for their future consequences. It shows a theme of

looking at the future and how their actions or words may have consequences for the future that

they either may not intend, or that may hurt relationships that they already have. There is an

importance in this as considering the consequences can be very important for looking into the

future and thinking about what to do in the present.

How big can these consequences be? Are they limited to a small area or can they affect

all of us? For examples of this, the best place to look is back to history and how we got to where

we are today. As stated previously, small actions can have drastic consequences, and to prove

that all that is needed is to look back at history. Looking through history it is possible to see

hundreds of examples of small actions changing the course of history. It is often cited that Adolf

Hitler being rejected from art school as the start of his political career and the rise of the Nazi

party in Germany. Or, something such as Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s driver taking a wrong turn

towards the assassins that tried to bomb his car that same day, where he was shot and effectively

started the first World War. Each of these is an example of the butterfly effect and what could be

caused by small and seemingly insignificant actions or mistakes. Knowing about these can help

us learn to not repeat them as they have happened in the past. It is important to know about these

events to learn from them and to look forward to how our actions today might impact the future.

If the world does not look back and learn then as in most scenarios, we are doomed to repeat

them as we do not know what we are looking for and therefore will be in a situation of

impending tragedy.
 Paul 4

The butterfly effect is the embodiment of chaos. At least, that is the way that it appears to

us as random events and insignificant actions lead to changes on a scale greater than anyone in

particular and that those events can change the lives of not just one person who made a small

mistake, but likely the whole world around them. The book The Woman Who Smashed Codes

explores this theme just a little bit, but it is the biggest thing that one could take away from the

book as a whole. Looking at it, it is important to see the future our actions can bring, to consider

that future when making choices and decisions, and that big things can come of our actions, and

that they are not to be underestimated. To learn about this and that the future has consequences

for our actions now is to learn to try and predict them and how they might affect the future and

the world around us.

 Paul 5

Works Cited

Fagone, J. (2018). The woman who smashed codes: A true story of love, spies, and the unlikely

heroine who outwitted America's enemies. New York, NY: Dey St., an imprint of William

Morrow.