Eng 313 Tu, Thu. 11:00am
Professor Wexler
10/14/10
Response Paper
If love wasn’t complicated already, what would it be like with time traveling thrown in the mix? If you haven’t guessed it already, I will be reflecting on a novel I enjoyed very much due to it’s original story line and it’s take on the subject of love; it’s The Time Traveler’s Wife. What is more radical than having a husband that time travels and trying to keep a stable relationship with a man that literally vanishes from your life in unpredictable patterns and comes back randomly? This is definately not your typical love story. What ever happened to the boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back storyline observable in almost every traditional Romantic movie out there? That is exactly what makes this novel radically exhilarating, with an unconventional twist.
The book focuses mostly on themes dealing with love, loss, marriage, and time of course. It is a victory of love over time. As impossible as that may sound, through all the hardships and pains the two protagonists of the story endure, they still have the deepest emotional attachments to one another, something rarely accomplished in real life. The divorce rate in America is higher than 50% (marriage101.org) , which is astoundingly high, making you wonder, “where did the love go?”. Are people less in love in contemporary America, or are they forgetting what love is? How can Henry and Clare keep their marriage going for so long even with Henry’s genetic disorder to time travel, and how can their love stay strong and endure that type of distance away from each other? They are not like most couples. What keeps them united is the fact that they have known each other most of their lives, almost like childhood friends. They are connected through the past, present, and future and know absolutely everything about each other. When modern couples meet or date, they are meeting for the first time, its hard to see what that person is truly like, so they make opinions based on first impressions, while their flaws are inconspicuous in the beginning. Henry tells Clare “That’s what I love you for: your inability to perceive my hideous flaws.” In his perspective he believes Clare is blind to his flaws, but perhaps it’s that she loves him regardless of those flaws. This is an unconventional love with an unconventional ending even though they do end up staying together like most Sex comedy movie genres that end with a happy ending(McDonald, “Romantic Comedy and Genre” Chp. 3). But The Time Traveler’s Wife explores life after marriage unlike the Sex comedies of the mid century. They have problems conceiving a child, and and Clare has to live with a disabled husband after he suffers hypothermia and both his feet are amputated. The radical part of the story is that regardless of everything they go through, they stay together, when any other modern couple would probably end up in divorce, and even after Henry’s death Clare never finds another partner because she knows she will never find another Henry. He’s the only man she ever loved.
The book does not deal with any political, racial, class or even gender issues so it’s difficult to try and connect it to other readings or movies. The main theme of the book is love and time, a love incomparable to most works of literature. It may not be as radical as Romeo and Juliet killing themselves for love, but the love that Henry and Clare share is timeless, even after death. Clare tells her friend Gomez “I can reach into [Henry] and touch time...he loves me.” Due to Henry's tangible love for Clare she finds time to be just as tangible to her, like she’s living the past and future in the present with the man she loves. Time and waiting are always an issue in the book, “Its hard being left behind. I wait for Henry, not knowing where he is, wondering if he’s okay. it’s hard to be the one who stays.” There is a strong motif dealing with the hardship of distance and waiting for the one you love to come back. In the movie “Dear John” waiting is also an issue, she has to wait for John for years to come back while he’s at war, but the difference is the female love interest leaves John for another man. She couldn’t deal with the pain of waiting, watching time pass every day, every hour, every minute. It was too painful for her to stay and to endure the anxiety of waiting. Clare had the will to endure, through better or for worse she endured. If that isn’t radical I don’t know what is! That is true, passionate love! Unlike most Romantic movies in the past and present. That is what makes this novel exceptional. The theme of love, and human emotion is portrayed in a deep, passionate and emotional level.
The novel is radical because they don’t have a preconceived happily ever after type of ending most people expect, but the test of their love in real life with real and unconventional problems and hardships never diminished the love they felt for one another. Their love stood the test of time, through good and bad, something rarely accomplished nowadays. Their love feels real and true. They were never perfect and could never be perfect, but the love they had was the only sure thing in their lives.
Works Cited
"Divorce Rates in America." Marriage 101. Web. 10 Oct. 2010.
Niffenegger, Audrey. The Time Traveler’s Wife. San Francisco, CA: McAdam/Cage, 2003.
Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet. Naperville, IL: Source MediaFusion, 2005. Print.
McDonald, Tamar Jeffers. "Chp. 3 Sex Comedy." Romantic Comedy: Boy Meets Girl Meets Genre. London: Wallflower, 2007. Print.
Dear John. Dir. Lassee Hallstrom. Perf. Channing Tatum Amanda Seyfried. Warner Bros., 2010. DVD.
No comments:
Post a Comment