Romance vs. Tragedy

In class we discussed the many ways in which Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife could be read as either a tragedy or a romance. Personally, I don't think you can separate the two. Romance, in the Disney form of the word, implies love, passion, and a happily-ever-after. But we, characters of the real world, know this to be false. Love and romance are often quite tragic. After all, we come from a society where over half of marriages end in divorce, children grow up in broken homes, and people are surprised to meet someone whose parents are still married. If you've ever loved and lost, you know love can be a tragedy. Therefore, I don't know what to classify this book as. It seems more like a tragedy to me due to the overwhelming themes of death and loss. Of course, I didn't view the end of the novel as a tragic case. I thought it was bittersweet the way Henry died but lived through time travel to meet up with his daughter at times and even got to see Clare grow old. Many argued that Clare's "waiting around for Henry all her life" is tragic, but I think she was quite lucky to have known her love ever since she was six. The letter Henry left her did make me cry, but it was a way of letting her know she should move on and he'd always be there. The way she never moved on from Henry was also bittersweet, and I don't think it was tragic because she was so used to waiting for Henry that it probably came as completely natural for her. Having said this, I just call The Time Traveler's Wife a "tear-jerker," because that could suggest either romance or tragedy. Either way, I like books that can make me cry.

Time Traveling

I've given this quite some thought since we've discussed time traveling in class. There are so many different times I wish I could travel back to in my life. For instance, I'd love to go back and see myself as a young child and observe how I viewed the world. I think I had it all figured out back then. Of course, It'd always be interesting to go back to when I was about sixteen and had just moved accross the country in the middle of high school. This was one of the hardest times in my life, because 16-year-olds over-dramaztize everything. If I could see my future self back then, I wouldn't look much different at all, but I'd know that everything was going to be fine no matter how much I hated the world. Also, for my present self, it would be fun to experience that emotionally charged couple years again. I think I could only handle a couple days of it at the most, though.

One of the times that I really wish I could relive (if time travel was a bit different than in The Time Traveler's Wife) was when my family and I lived in Germany and my parents would take us sightseeing all over Europe. I was only about 3 or 4, and my sister was a baby. I would have loved to remember all this and actually have known the significance of the sights or been able to appreciate kissing the Blarney Stone and riding a gondola up the Alps. If I could time travel back to this period in time, I wouldn't do it like Henry did, where he found himself naked in a time where he aldready existed. I'd hopefully be able to just be a 20-year old inside a 4-year old's body. Then I could just pretend to say cute little things about airplanes flying by, but really be soaking in the experiences. It would also be an extra perk to go back to a time when my sister couldn't talk yet.

Extremely Confused and Incredibly Far Away

I do not remember 9/11/01 very well with the exception of the first couple hours of my day. I was curling my hair, getting ready for another day of 8th grade. My mother came downstairs and told me to come up to her room and watch the news with her. She told me the World Trade Center got hit by an airplane. I had no idea what the World Trade Center was, where it was, or why this was really such an incredible event. The only thing I remember was being worried about the plane crash. I wanted to be a pilot, and it worried me to hear about crashes. However, my mother had a hint of emergency in her voice and I could tell something was off about this. I went with her to her room, my dad was out of town on business and I guess my little sister was probably still sleeping. I looked up at the television, and saw the images which have now been burned into every American's memory. First, it was only the one tower smoking, then they showed another plane flying into the second, the first collapsing, the people on the streets of New York crying. Also, they showed clips of the Pentagon. Before that moment, airplanes flying into skyscrapers was something I never even bothered to imagine. Watching this occur was like watching someone do something grotesque or abnormal. I don't think I ate breakfast, I had to hurry up and catch the schoolbus. At the bus stop, we discussed this situation like we knew anything about the world besides suburban America. We weren't aware of any enemies, and I had never heard the word "terrorist" actually used to describe anyone, a word I could have frankly done without. At school, the news was on all day in every classroom. The teachers started giving us more insight as to the potential attackers, and we saw the footage of the plane that crashed in the field not far from my hometown in PA. At this time I lived in WA, though, so I was much further from the event. That's about all I remember about the actual day. The whole week after 9/11, my Arab friends were kept home from school by their mother, who feared they'd be attacked. They did suffer much discrimination and humiliation at school that year. I remember I still didn't understand why, because they were Americans like the rest of us. I remember the American flags being sold out at every store, and feeling ashamed of our patriotism. I don't know why, but I never really liked it when people displayed American flags or when we had to say the pledge of allegiance. I can't explain why. Anyway, then Bush announced we were going to war, and I began to watch the news every night. I was very afraid, for the world I had always known was the world of Internet, Clinton, glitter, TLC, and Baby Spice....never war. I was pretty angry. My family and I moved back to the east coast, and I met people who were actually affected by 9/11. Their brothers/in-laws/uncles/cousins had died in the towers. The schools began to teach students about the Middle East and Islam so they could understand an entire race, religion and region of the world was not responsible for this, but rather a select few extremists. Anyway, that's about all I have to say about 9/11. I'm actually really sick of hearing about it. I was sort of disappointed to hear this novel was about it, but it's turned out to be really disconnected from world affairs and mostly about the relationships between people, so I'm content for now.