43 pages • 1 hour read
Audrey NiffeneggerThe Time Traveler's Wife
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Fate Versus Free Will
The novel poses this question: How much of life is controlled by free will, and how much of it is predetermined? In Clare’s case, fate plays a strong role. Henry’s appearance in her life when she is a child structures and guides her decisions. Henry has seen her future, and to a small extent, he informs her of what it will look like. She knows her destiny is to marry him, even if she doesn’t know all the details.
When she meets Henry in his present, Henry’s prophecies come true. However, one could argue that Henry shaped her perspective, that it wasn’t fate that directed her, but Clare following what Henry said would happen. She knew she was meant to marry him; thus, she saved herself for him emotionally instead of exploring deep relationships with other people. Her life was not pre-destined, perhaps, but a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Niffenegger leaves the role of fate up to the reader. Clare remains by Henry’s side in spite of his erratic nature. One could contend that this is predetermined, that Clare lacks agency. Her life unfolds the way that it’s supposed to; Henry knows it, and there are no other possible alternatives.
Henry’s condition is an exaggerated example of how we must live the best we can within harrowing conditions. Henry can’t control his disability: time traveling
He can only keep his stress level down in the hopes that he won’t disappear. Henry says—“there is only free will when you are in time, in the present” (57). His attempts at remaining calm is an act of agency within strict, preset parameters.
When Henry travels, he has no control where he ends up. Henry intuitively knows that his future self dies when shot at the age of 43, and that he will one day as well. He can do nothing to prevent it from happening because it has already happened. Arguably, this is a metaphor for life: We have no control over the fact that we will all die one day, even if we aren’t time travelers. What’s up to us is how we live our lives beforehand. This is our free will.
The Nature of Time and Memory
Henry’s ability to time travel changes how he understands and processes time. When he travels, he often has no idea of where and when he is. He is disoriented and unsure. He does not experience time linearly, traveling to the past and to the future randomly.
There are so many moments in his present in which he is absent; Henry claims that his sense of time passing is different from other people’s, that his “seems to run slower” (117). He does not experience time as Clare does, because he is often in the past. He relives his memories literally by being there, such as when revisiting his mother’s death. Unlike other people, he does not have to rely on subjective memories to construct past events in an accurate and authentic way. In contrast, Clare experiences time in the traditional sense. For her, time moves in a line chronologically and toward the future at all times.
While Clare is not able to physically time travel, her memory gives her that ability, as it does for most people. This form of time travel plays as critical a role as Henry’s literal ability. When Clare first meets Henry, she reveals all of the things he told her while she was growing up. In the novel’s opening scene, Clare’s memory is what propels the action forward; otherwise, Henry would have no idea who she was.
When Henry dies, Clare’s sense of time changes. Even as an old woman, Clare still looks for Henry, anticipating his arrival as he’d promised. She has been frozen in time since his death. This is mirrored by the novel’s structure:
In the final chapter, time forwards ahead to when Clare is 82 years old.
The ending suggests that time can speed up depending on circumstances. As Henry appears to Clare, 45 years have passed, yet it feels as though no time has passed at all. How we evaluate the passing of time, and whether it moves slowly or quickly, is subjective. The final chapter reflects how time stands still when one is mourning.
The Impact of Grief
The novel has its share of tragedy, beginning with the description of Annette’s death. Richard’s failure to cope with her loss reveals both the acute and gradual impact grief can have. After his wife dies, Richard embarks on a path of destruction. He becomes an alcoholic, and when Henry arrives to ask for his mother’s engagement and wedding rings, Richard has lost all interest in what matters to him, such as playing the violin. It is not until Henry reveals that he sees Annette on his time travels that Richard comes back to life. Richard tells Henry—“it’s good to know that she’s there, somewhere” (227). Henry’s ability to time travel means that people can subvert death and transcend time—at least in the context of the novel.
Clare’s grief mirrors Richard’s. She spends the first month after losing Henry removed from her life, even retreating from her daughter, Alba. Henry’s absence has taken on its own life. Clare says—“sometimes I wake up and reach for Henry’s letter. Henry likens himself to Homer’s Odysseus and Clare to Penelope. Odysseus, like Henry, will always be trying to reach home, and Clare, like Penelope will always be waiting for him.
This analogy suggests that Henry will travel to Clare in the distant future. Like Annette, Henry transcends time. He still exists somewhere, even though he’s dead. In the final chapter, we learn that Clare has lived a life of quality, but that her life, like her childhood, is one of waiting for Henry.
Henry’s letter suggests that overcoming grief depends on the hope that, one day, we will be reunited with lost loved ones. This is true in a literal sense for Clare whose husband is a time traveler, making it possible for her to see him while she’s still alive. It is also true for how people find solace in religion and the hope that we see our loved ones in the afterlife.
