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:

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