The Time Traveller's Wife Analysis

The Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu once said “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” (Lao Tzu), for it is true: love is an incredibly powerful thing with many gifts to offer. The novel The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, the film The Fault in Our Stars by Josh Boone, and the epic poem The Odyssey by Homer all contain the topic of love, which is shown to bring peace to a turbulent environment, encourage perseverance, and elicit commitment throughout all of its instances. Consequently, a person’s situation, personality, and outlook on life are improved when they bring love into their lives. Throughout each of the works there is a common feature of a hectic atmosphere, however

In The Time Traveller’s Wife, Clare has plenty reason to give up in many aspects of her life: she suffers multiple miscarriages, the death of her mother, and particularly the constant disappearances of her husband. Yet Clare’s love for Henry gives her the strength to persist until his return. He leaves Clare a letter to read after he dies, in which he tells her he will be visiting her one last time after his death. Knowing this, Clare does not let the sadness of losing her husband overtake her life and instead waits decades for her lover’s return. At the age of 82, she states “I know Henry will come, eventually … He is coming, and I am here.” (518). In The Odyssey, Odysseus is motivated to pursue his strenuous journey is his love for Penelope, for she is the reason he longs to go back home. He states: "Nevertheless I long—I pine, all my days—to travel home and see the dawn of my return. And if a god will wreck me yet again on the wine-dark sea, I can bear that too, with a spirit tempered to endure … bring the trial on" (Homer, 84), showing that he is willing to endure anything so long as he can return home. In The Fault in Our Stars, Augustus finds out his cancer has spread throughout his entire body, meaning he is very close to dying, yet he comforts Hazel by saying: “Don’t you worry about me, Hazel Grace. I’ll

The presence of love results in commitment to one’s significant other, to oneself, and to the world around them. In The Odyssey, Penelope shows both her commitment and cunningness when she develops a plan to pacify her suitors: “she set up a great loom in the royal halls and she began to weave … and she would lead us on: ‘Young men, my suitors, now that King Odysseus is no more, go slowly, keen as you are to marry me, until I can finish off this web …” So by day she’d weave at her great and growing web—by night, by the light of torches set beside her, she would unravel all she’d done. Three whole years she deceived us blind, seduced us with this scheme” (Homer, 21). For three years, Penelope wove and unwove a single garment, as to stay committed to her husband while awaiting his return because of the love she had for him. In The Time Traveller’s Wife, Clare mirrors Penelope in her wait for the return of her husband, for he is thrown throughout time like a ragdoll. This puts Clare in a difficult situation, as "romance proves even trickier than usual when one person keeps vanishing to distant, and occasionally dangerous, times.” (“Books Briefly Noted: The Time Traveler’s Wife”), and she is often left alone with Gomez, a man who fancies her. Clare does give into the temptation one night and sleeps with Gomez, however she realizes Gomez will never be like