1986. Some works of literature use the element of time in a distinct way. The chronological sequence of events may be altered, or time may be suspended or accelerated. Choose a novel, an epic, or a play of recognized literary merit and show how the author’s manipulation of time contributes to the effectiveness of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.
“Long day today?” One might be asked this on a busy day, or a day filled with troubles and conflict, but how can one day be longer than another? Are there not always twenty four hours? It is used to show how our perception of the day and how quickly it passes can be changed by our own feelings. In A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki, the themes of time are ever-present, from young Nao’s musings on life and existence, to the title of the novel itself. Through Seattle-located Ruth’s discoveries and Western-style speech and Japan-located Nao’s reflective writing, Ozeki is able to change the pace of the book to distinguish the experiences of the two women, and conveys the persistence of time in writing, as well as the timelessness of Nao’s life experiences.
The novel begins with Nao’s introduction of herself. Peppy, charming, and deceptively innocent, her candid description of life in Electric Town conveys a rather mundane existence. The imagery in Ozeki’s description of the cafe Nao is sitting in suggests the constancy and normalcy of life in a small town, with the occasional creepy “otaku salaryman” glancing at Nao. Ozeki stirs up this slow-pacing with the exposal of Nao’s troubles and family difficulties. Nao writes, “Recently, some nasty stuff has been happening in my life… ” (20). This sets up the rising action of the story and initiates the disturbance in Electric Town’s sleepiness. Nao’s journal serves as both a record of old grandma Jiko’s life experiences as well as a suicide note. Nao’s difficult family life, mostly due to her father’s depression and attempted suicide, has drained her and though her twelve years on Earth seem short, they have been stretched out longer than she can handle. Ozeki demonstrates this throughout the novel by intermixing Nao’s thoughts, which are fluid and span larger periods of time, with more specific experiences that use more detail. In these specific experiences, time seems to slow. When Nao’s father quits his job (72) and when grandma Jiko visits to take Nao to her temple (220), the pace of the writing speeds up, packed with action and event, but time itself slows; these passages often cover just ten minutes of Nao’s life, but say just as much as passages covering hours or even years. These experiences are grounded in reality, but Nao’s ponderings about life as a whole and people as time-beings are timeless, and traverse centuries at a time.
Nao’s perspective in the novel is woven with Ruth’s experiences. Ruth’s experiences are largely in the present, but her discovery of Nao’s journal washed up on a beach (9) draws her into the lost past-life of Nao’s time in Japan. Ozeki uses her investigation of Nao’s journal with her husband, cat and neighbor, to more closely match “now”. In these scenes, time is neither sped up, nor slowed down. This contrasts with the manipulation of time in Nao’s perspective, but in Ruth’s perspective, she reflects on Nao’s experiences contained in the journal and the centuries’ old tales of Jiko’s life, and how so much time is contained within Nao’s writing.
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