Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Time Traveler’s Wife, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Here and Now
Love and Absence
Free Will vs. Determinism
Language and Art
Self-Love
Summary
Analysis
Thursday, June 15, 2006 (Clare is 35). It is the day before Henry’s birthday, so Clare heads to a record store to find a suitable present. The owner of the shop shows Clare the record of Annette singing in Paris that Henry asked him to look for. He asks Clare why Henry wants this particular record, and she explains that it’s a recording of Henry’s late mother. The owner says he remembered when Annette died in a car accident but never realized Henry’s relation to her. Clare is anxious to see Henry’s reaction when she gives it to him.
This scene further highlights one of the novel’s core themes: the transformative power of art. So far, the novel has mostly examined this theme as it relates to Clare’s art and the poetry that she and Henry hold dear. Here, though, Clare seeks out a recording of Henry’s mother’s singing to immortalize her memory for Henry.
Themes
Friday, June 16, 2006 (Henry is 43, Clare is 35). Henry wakes on his 43rd birthday. He watches Clare sleep peacefully before getting up to make coffee. He goes into the bathroom with his coffee to shave and take stock of his appearance. He sees that he is thinner than usual, and his hair has turned almost fully gray. Clare and Alba wake up, and the family heads to the zoo to meet Gomez, Charisse, and their children. After, Henry and Clare leave Alba with a sitter and dress up for a fancy dinner downtown. They arrive at an abandoned-looking apartment that Henry doesn’t recognize.
Henry’s thin stature and gray hair reflect the inevitability of aging and the unstoppable passage of time. Though Henry can travel between past, present, and future, he cannot halt the aging process. Though he's a time traveler, he is fated to grow old and decay, just like anyone else.
Themes
Inside, Henry sees that Clare has converted the empty apartment building into their own private restaurant for the evening. Nell has come to town to cook Henry’s birthday dinner. They eat a meal that reminds Henry of one he shared with Annette in Athens as a small boy. After dinner and cake, Clare presents Henry with his birthday present; she places the record on a player she brought for the occasion, and Henry recognizes his mother’s voice immediately. Henry and Clare kiss. Back at home, Clare asks Henry if he ever wants to freeze the passage of time, because she feels that she could stay here forever.
This is an important moment in Henry’s grieving process. Usually, he time travels to the scene of the accident that killed his mother, effectively relieving that trauma over and over again. But here, with Clare’s help, he turns to art—to a recording of his mother’s singing—to process his grief in a healthier, and hopefully more productive way. Clare’s wish to freeze time indicates her awareness that Henry likely doesn’t have much time left to live. By extension, it reinforces the novel’s insistence that it’s important to stay in the present and appreciate life’s precious moments.
Themes
