Theme

The author, Audrey Niffenegger, uses different themes through out the novel to portray the feeling and connection between characters. She is intending to communicate the bond between two people who are so different and how they are meant to be together because of their differences. By using the themes of love and family and marriage the author is guiding us through their life together. Imagery and setting are two main literary devices that are coming up a lot in the novel. By using imagery, the author really puts a picture in the readers mind about what is happening and what she is trying to express through the characters. By using descriptive words, it really helps picture what is being read. Setting is a main literary device because the setting changes so frequently in the novel. The setting can set a certain mood in that particular chapter and move the story in a direction that the author wants in to go.    

Love: The theme of love is expressed between the two characters Henry and Clare in many different ways. The sacrifices they both have to make for each other shows the connection that they share. There is also the physical love that they share throughout the novel and is mentioned more during the present time. The author shows that with a love this strong, the characters can overcome anything and be together forever, despite the time travel. [Henry:] “This is why I love to be drawn by Clare: when she looks at me with that kind of attention, I feel that I am everything to her.” They have grown up together and watched each other grow into who they become in the present.

Time: The theme of time is one of the most important one in the novel. For Henry, past, present, and future happen in the same time, while Clare only experiences time in the present. When she waits for Henry, time seems to move more slowly. When he's with her, it seems to proceed much faster. They have known one another their whole lives and had to wait for each other. Henry was in the future and had to wait for Clare to grow up while Clare was a young girl and had to wait for Henry to come back to visit her. “I keep myself busy. Time goes faster that way.”

 

Active Reading

What do I love about this Book: This novel is different from anything I have read in the past. The whole story line is different and really makes you think about what time period the characters are in at the time. It goes back and forth from past to present instead of just one chronological storyline. Because of the unique was the book was written, it draws you into what is happening and the plot of the story. I am someone that takes so long to find a book that really interests me, but this book can be hard to put down. It brings you in with the connection that the characters have and the different way of life they lead. Some people in the novel think that Clare is crazy for staying with Henry while he time travels to different time periods of his past, but it really shows the strong connection the to characters have and how far they have come with he impact they have on each others lives.

What do I hate about this book:

What does time have to do with love?

Conflict

In this story, The Time Traveler’s Wife, the main conflict in the novel would be that Henry time travels and can leave the present and come back at any given time. Henry has been living with the struggle of trying to stay in the present his whole life and it is still not solved at this point in the novel. Time Travel affects the plot greatly because it is setting the main character, Henry, in a different time period throughout each chapter of the book creating a very dynamic, unique story line. With Henry as a time traveler, it impacts Clare’s life very much as well. She has grown up knowing this and had to live with this secret ever since she was a young girl.  If this conflict was not a main part of the book, this novel would no be what it is and the story line would be completely different.

Characters

Henry: Henry is a time traveler and has been ever since he was a young boy. With this time travel occurring throughout the book, as readers we can see him in different stages in his life and how he has grown and changed as a person. "When I am out there, in time, I am inverted, changed into a desperate version of myself. I become a thief, a vagrant, an animal who runs and hides." Henry can relive a time in his past at any given time in the present. This is what makes Henry a unique character. The big turning point in Henry would be when he meets Clare in the present and he slowly becomes a mature man that knows a lot about the world around him. 

Clare: Throughout the book, readers are privileged to read how Clare grows up from a young child to an artsy woman. Clare is a very strong willed person and knows what she wants in her life. Henry is her life, and has been since she was a young girl. The meeting of Henry makes who Clare is and formed her personality and life style. She knew before they met in the present time that her and Henry were going to get married. Knowing this changed her whole outlook on life while growing up. "Do you ever miss him? she asks me. [Clare:] Every day, every minute." Clare has been in love with Henry ever since she met him in the meadow she played in by her childhood home. Her lover for him is her main drive for things in life and having him makes her who she is. Even though she always has Henry, she is a very independent person because she is constantly alone while he is time traveling. 

 Father: Henry’s father is mentioned multiple times by Henry relating back to when he lived with him, and we finally meet his father in the later chapters. Readers are able to hear and descriptions of how he was like when Henry’s mother was still alive. "If you traveled back to then, why couldn't you have stopped her from getting into that goddamn car?" In the present time, Henry and Clare visit his father and there is a noticeable change from when Henry was a child and growing up to now, when his father is alone and not working. He is a very sad and unhappy man, who wastes his days drinking and sleeping and no longer doing what he loves to do, perform music. After his wife past away he slowly lost everything. This character shows the hardship in love and what it is like to lose a loved one.        

Henry's Mother: Although Henry’s mother is no longer alive; Henry visits her at different times in her life on his time travels. She is still a major part in Henry’s life even though she has been gone for so long. His mother and father are it’s own love story within a love story. As Henry watches them from a far grow up with each other he sees the impact that she had on his life and his fathers. She is very inspiring to Henry and his life as a child and she continues to inspire him while he revisits her over and over again.  

Gomez: Gomez becomes a good friend to Henry as the book progresses. He starts out being a protective friend of Clare’s and warns Clare that Henry is bad news. As he learns more about Henry he becomes more trusting of him. Gomez learns of Henry’s time travel and is one of the only people that know about Henry in that way which makes hi a close friend to Henry. Henry feels a trust between them and the friendship grows. Gomez is the type of person that needs to know and be involved in everything. He is a very strong-minded person and this is how he comes across Henry and his time traveling.

Setting

There are two main time frames in The Time Traveler’s Wife. Because Henry, one of the main characters, is a time traveler there is a past and present setting.

Present: In the present time of the novel, Clare and Henry meet in the city of Chicago where both are living at that time. They create a life together in this city. This setting is significant because the author, Audrey Niffenegger was originally from Chicago and grew up here. She added a personal piece of information to the novel connecting her to the characters.

 Past: The past is where Henry travels to while he is mid time travel. He tends to go to places that he is most comfortable. He travels to a main setting in the book, the meadow. This meadow is a significant place because it is where Clare spent most of her childhood and where Henry and Clare meet and grow together. It connects these two characters through a simple environment. Henry also travels to the place of his mother’s death over and over again. He was five when this event occurred this setting brings henry back to his childhood and the memories of his mother. A simple setting brings back an overwhelming flow of memories that can slowly him all over again.

The setting changes plenty of times throughout each chapter because it is skipping from the preset to the past back to another place in the past and to the present again. This book is unique setting wise because it doesn’t have a specific main setting, rather many settings, each with a different story. 

Chapter 14

The main theme in chapter of the book is love and marriage. This is the chapter where Henry and Clare are getting married and get to spend whatever time they have in the present as a married couple finally. Although Henry has already experienced being married to Clare because of his time travel, it is a new event for Clare. Audrey, when writing the book, was really focused on the marriage of these two characters and in this chapter she gets to elaborate and explain their wedding through her eyes and her perspective of the marriage. From here on in the novel she has the opportunity to describe the marriage and love between these two characters as one.

"We walk down the aisle, arm is arm, together." Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

Favourite Quotation

"It's come to this, I think. Henry takes my hands and looks at me gravely. I've waited for this so long and here it is and I'm frightened."(The Time Traveler's Wife, 226)

This is my favourite quotation because it really gives you a sense of how Clare really feels about Henry and its an actual thought she has in a situation. It is a great example of how she has been anticipating so many events for her whole life because she grew up knowing Henry was out there waiting to marry her. It is a classic example for a love story. Clare, her whole childhood and growing up to the present, has known she was going to marry Henry and now having it actually happen she has all these emotions of excitement. I'm sure many people can relate to this feeling, when knowing an event will occur and the excitement it brings and finally having it happen and feeling almost a sense of fear because of the overwhelming joy.  

Critical Article Summaries

Summary One

Audrey Niffenegger’s first novel, The Time Traveler’s Wife, shows her creativity for writing through the unique storyline. How the idea of this novel was portrayed and how it was finally written is all shown in the final product. The author wrote the novel in a way only a true artist could understand. Audrey Niffenegger started the book with a title and the story grew from there. “So I wrote down this title and after a while I started to think about it. I couldn't think of a way to make it a picture book because still pictures don't represent time very well, so I decided to write a novel." (Benedicte) This author, before writing novels wrote books that were illustrated by her as well. She based her storyline on a small topic that created the title and with all words representing this idea, created her novel. Her novel is the journey of the warm loving marriage of a couple from Chicago. She didn’t just write about any relationship between two people, this was the original idea behind this love story. The main character was a time traveler and could reminisce in his own past while the present is still proceeding. Being an artist, her creative mind went to work and she changed the whole outlook on a love story. Audrey had a unique way of writing her novel, The Time Traveler’s Wife. The story line is different from a regular book that goes from beginning to end of a character’s life. She started by writing the ending of the book and kept two timelines, one of the present time in the story and one of Henry, the time traveler, and where and when he was coming from. Audrey says, “I wrote the book scene by scene, out of order.” While writing this novel, she experienced a new way to look at life on a “day to day level”. (Benedicte) The whole concept of time traveling and love stories made her think about different aspects in life and how they affect us all. “Ordinarily you just breathe, but if you think about breathing it becomes this very strange activity.” With all the different events in this novel the main thing that grabs this author’s attention is the main character’s marriage, she is very curious and fascinated with it. The Time Traveler’s Wife was this artists first novel. She went at writing it a whole new way and the finished product was a best seller with a unique storyline that anyone can read and love.       

Benedicte, Page. "The Bookseller." Literature Resource Centre. Business Media, 24/10/2003. Web. 19 Oct 2011. <http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/LitRC?vrsn=3&OP=contains&locID=ko_k12hs_d21&srchtp=athr&ca=1&c=37&ste=18&stab=2048&tab=2&tbst=arp&ai=U16829218&n=10&docNum=A110574627&ST=Audrey Niffenegger &bConts=2191>.

  Summary Two          

With an original title, and meaningful thoughts in the novel, it is instantly a book worth the read. The Time Traveler’s Wife is a story of Clare and Henry. Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six when they met. They got married when Clare was twenty-three and Henry was thirty-one. Henry is a time traveler and is pulled into the past and future of his life. He has no control over where he goes or when he’ll return. Audrey is interested in the relationship between these characters and is puling the reader into feeling the same way. It’s different how these two character’s meet. Henry is already married to Clare before Clare even knows who Henry is. Because of their odd meeting, Clare’s childhood is not a normal one with off and on visits from her future husband. While reading the relationship between these two, you can feel the connection that Audrey has built between them. She jumps back and forth between character’s view points and the most interesting part about the novel is how different and disorganized the timeline is. There is humor and violence and love and heartbreak all within the novel. This is not only a great novel but it is a promise. A promise that the kind of love that Clare and Henry share is out there for everyone and reading this book proves that.

DeLint, Charles. "Book Review." Literature Resource Centre. Spilogale, Inc., 05/2004. Web. 19 Oct 2011. <http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/LitRC?vrsn=3&OP=contains&locID=ko_k12hs_d21&srchtp=athr&ca=1&c=31&ste=18&stab=2048&tab=2&tbst=arp&ai=U16829218&n=10&docNum=A115567301&ST=Audrey Niffenegger &bConts=2191>.

Summary Three

“Writing allows me to make the daydreams very complex and artful.” (Allen) Audrey Niffenegger, the author of The Time Traveler’s Wife, explains why she writes the way she does. She has been writing and making art since she was a child and to her it’s a way to express and record her daydreams. Thinking about her characters and what they do and say to each other does the routine of her writing. They are the main idea of the story and she wants the readers to feel connected to them. “At the beginning of a project I probably spend 90 percent of my writing time thinking and 10 percent actually moving my fingers across the keyboard.” She writes her novels out of order, starting with anything but the beginning. When she starts a novel, it all begins with a title and a specific image she has. For The Time Traveler’s Wife, it began with the title and the image of an elderly woman sitting by a window with a cup of tea. That idea grows from a series of questions that eventually leads to a story. Everything in that story has a meaning and was written as it was for a reason. This author has a very interesting way of writing her novels. In the end, they turn out very well done and her creativity is spread on paper through her own thoughts and words. 

Allen, Robert. "The Writer." Literature Resource Centre. Kalmbach Publishing Company, 07/2010. Web. 19 Oct 2011. <http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/LitRC?vrsn=3&OP=contains&locID=ko_k12hs_d21&srchtp=athr&ca=1&c=4&ste=18&stab=2048&tab=2&tbst=arp&ai=U16829218&n=10&docNum=A227280899&ST=Audrey Niffenegger&bConts=2191>.

Connections to the authors life

I've noticed that after reading about Audrey Niffenegger and her life that she uses a lot of her interests and adds connections to her life within the novel. I read in a biography about Audrey that she enjoys punk bands and listening to them in her home town of Chicago. On page 204 and 205 of the novel The Time Traveler's Wife, Henry and Clare are having a conversation with two teenagers about what kind of music they listen to. They are naming off punk bands and one of them mentioned is one of Audrey's favourite, Patti Smith. "You have to go back to the sixties, right? You start with the Velvet Underground, in New York. And then, right over here in Detroit, you've got the MC5, and Iggy Pop and the Stooges. And then back in New York, there were The New York Dolls, and The Heartbreakers-" (Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife, 205)    

Survey of authors and secondary sources

1. Author: Audrey Niffenegger

Title: The Time Traveler’s Wife

2. What made you interested in this author?

The first aspect that pulled me into this author was the fact that she was not only an author but also a visual artist. I am very interesting in the arts, which includes visual art. I felt that I had something in common with the artist in that we both share the love for visual art. She started writing and drawing when she was young and I too enjoyed art from a young age always wanting to be more and more creative. When reading a book it is a great feeling knowing that you can connect with either a character in the novel or even the author.

3. Brief Background of the AuthorAudrey Niffenegger was born in 1963 and spent her childhoodgrowing up in Evanston, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. She found interest in writing and drawing at a young age and as a child would write her own stories and create pictures to go along with them.  She had an interest in Patti Smith and still enjoys seeing punk bands perform live in her hometown. Audrey Niffenegger received a BFA from the School of Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from Northwestern University.  She then became a Professor in the Interdisciplinary Book Arts MFA program at the Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts. Her first book, The Time Traveler’s Wife, was written in 2003.

4. Other published works and genres

This author, Audrey Niffenegger, wrote and had published four novels in her life so far. The Spinster, The Time Traveler’s Wife, The Three Incestuous Sisters, and Her Fearful Symmetry.  For her first novel, The Time Traveler’s Wife, she won Popular fiction award, Sainsbury, 2006, for best novel. This novel was also made into a motion picture in 2009.

5. Information on particular places, time periods, events of influence or interests to your author

Audrey Niffenegger really enjoys watching punk bands play live in her home city of Chicago, and this is where her most recent novel is set. Her book setting aren’t all modern settings so she enjoys changing up the time period and where the characters in the book are from.     

6. Themes favored by the author

In her novels written, Audrey Niffenegger has one main theme that is most prominent in all, the theme of love. She enjoys using different types of love and exploring how love can change and create different stories. Romance novels are very popular and she makes them unique. For example, The Time Traveler’s Wife, is a common love story between two characters, but she changes it by have one of them a time traveler and not always in the present time with his lover.

8.     "Audrey Niffenegger." Background(2006): n. pag. Pro Quest. Web. 10 Oct 2011. <http://literature.proquestlearning.com/critRef/displayItemById.do?QueryType=reference&forAuthor=40670&BackTo=Author Page&ItemID=bio40670 pqllit_ref_lib>.

     "Audrey Niffenegger." Biography06/10/2010. n. pag. Literature Resource Centre. Web. 10 Oct 2011. <http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/LitRC?tab=1&n=10&vrsn=3&ste=6&c=1&docNum=H1000192663&locID=ko_k12hs_d21&bConts=2191&srchtp=athr&finalAuth=true&tbst=arp&OP=contains&ca=1&ai=U16829218&ST=Audrey Niffenegger >.

     "The Bookseller." Critical Review09/24/2003. n. pag. Literature Resource Centre. Web. 10 Oct 2011. <http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/LitRC?n=10&tab=2&vrsn=3&stab=2048&ste=18&c=37&docNum=A110574627&locID=ko_k12hs_d21&bConts=2191&srchtp=athr&tbst=arp&finalAuth=true&OP=contains&ca=1&ai=U16829218&ST=Audrey Niffenegger >.

     "The Time Traveler's Wife." Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction05/2004. n. pag. Infotrac. Web. 10 Oct 2011. <http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/LitRC?tab=2&n=10&vrsn=3&stab=2048&ste=18&c=31&docNum=A115567301&locID=ko_k12hs_d21&bConts=2191&srchtp=athr&finalAuth=true&tbst=arp&OP=contains&ca=1&ai=U16829218&ST=Audrey Niffenegger >.

CRITICAL ARTICLES:

http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/LitRC?vrsn=3&OP=contains&locID=ko_k12hs_d21&srchtp=athr&ca=1&c=37&ste=18&stab=2048&tab=2&tbst=arp&ai=U16829218&n=10&docNum=A110574627&ST=Audrey+Niffenegger+&bConts=2191

http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/LitRC?vrsn=3&OP=contains&locID=ko_k12hs_d21&srchtp=athr&ca=1&c=31&ste=18&stab=2048&tab=2&tbst=arp&ai=U16829218&n=10&docNum=A115567301&ST=Audrey+Niffenegger+&bConts=2191

http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/LitRC?vrsn=3&OP=contains&locID=ko_k12hs_d21&srchtp=athr&ca=1&c=4&ste=18&stab=2048&tab=2&tbst=arp&ai=U16829218&n=10&docNum=A227280899&ST=Audrey+Niffenegger&bConts=2191

Book Choice Submission Questions

1. Novel title: The Time Traveler's Wife

         Author: Audrey Niffenegger                                                 

         Date of publication: 2003                                                     

         Number of pages: 518

2. I am someone that will take forever to find a good book that I don’t want to put down. I find it difficult to find one that really interests me from start to finish. When choosing a book for this ISU I wanted to make sure I would read it start to end and enjoy the whole thing. I have heard a lot about the book, The Time Traveler's Wife, from my friends. I hear that the book is worth the read and is something you can really enjoy.

3. So far, the book is not bad but seems hard to get into because it’s jumping from two sides of a story both at different time periods, Henry and Clare that are completely different perspectives. The story line seems like it could get confusing if your not but into what your reading I feel like if  I really get into the book I will enjoy it.

4. I haven’t read that much yet. I have read the prologue and the first chapter, which puts me on page 24.

5. So far, it has basically just been the introduction to the whole story and one of the first meetings of the characters. The main characters, Henry and Clare, both share who they are. It started out with each person explaining how they felt about a current situation hat is taking place in the present. Then it jumps to a time in their lives when they meet for one of the first times. They are in a library and Clare knows Henry but Henry isn’t aware of her existence yet. It is also discovered that Henry is a time traveler and from what it seems like now, not by choice. It feels that a great connection between the two characters is being built that will only get stronger as the book continues.

6. The theme that seems to be forming is love and closeness. These two characters are n love in the present and are alone when they can’t be together. They constantly think about each other. The author could be trying to portray how everyone holds on to love in different ways. People need love to feel a part of something. In this case, even when it seems it can’t be possible they still hold on to each other.

7.  I have used a website what is a review about the book. It was good when I was deciding when to chose a book because it was someone’s opinion and summary about what I was about to read.      http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/time_travelers_wife/review/

8. “Sometimes you feel euphoric. Everything is sublime and has an aura, and suddenly you are intensely nauseated and then you are gone.” (The Time Traveler’s Wife, page 2) This particular line was taken from the prologue where both main characters and their stories are introduced.  The line speaks to me in a few different ways. In life things can be dull and lifeless or bright and overwhelming, depending how you looks at it. This sentence explains both, when everything seems so right and surreal then in an instant can all fall apart. Life is like this in many ways because out of no where with no warning at all, everything that once made your life so great and perfect is gone and you feel empty. Nobody likes emptiness. People can take these events negatively and eventually give up, not enjoying life while they can. They should take it and grow as a person and create moments that can be cherished forever for other difficult obstacles will come in the future. The things that bring us down will eventually make us stronger and motivate us to live to the fullest.    

9. My book has three main parts. My goal for the end of September is to complete half of the first part of the novel. The second part I hope to be finished by the end of October so that I will be completed the whole novel by the end of November.