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
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, September 25, 26, and 27 (Clare is 35, Henry is 43). Clare tries to stay busy with Alba while Henry is gone all day time traveling. They eat fast food, play cards, and color. After Alba falls asleep, Clare attempts to read Proust in the original French. The task makes her tired, and she is nearly asleep when she hears a loud bang in the living room. There she finds Henry, hypothermic and begging for her to help him. Clare calls an ambulance.
The beginning of this chapter resolves the cliffhanger that ended the last chapter: Henry’s (the present Henry of this day, meaning the future Henry who was locked in the parking garage in the last chapter, which occurred several months before this chapter) hypothermia indicates the seriousness of his situation. Up until this point, Clare’s care and love for Henry, and Henry’s own acts of self-care and self-love, have been able to get Henry out of most time-traveling predicaments. But now, having sustained such serious damage to his body, it’s unclear if Henry will escape this misadventure unscathed.
Themes
Later. Clare arrives in the emergency room. All the lights overwhelm her. Around her, people of all ages are in pain, suffering and needing help for their injuries and sicknesses. Clare wonders about the young men and if they’ll use the scars they gain from their injuries to impress girls once they’re healed.
Clare’s observation about the young men and their scars attempts to relate to others’ situations: she wonders if these young men have loving women in their lives who will forgive and accept the men despite or perhaps because of the pain they’ve caused themselves (and those who love them) in their absences.
Themes
Later. Henry is brought into a hospital room. Clare watches as nurses transfer him to his bed. He is conscious but barely responding. Henry’s hypothermia causes him to shiver so violently that it shakes everything around him. A doctor wraps Henry’s body in a fabric that will reflect his body heat back in and places ice packs on his feet to slow their thaw. Nurses tell her they won’t know more until they raise his temperature. Between shivers, Henry repeats Clare’s name.
Tension continues to mount as Henry’s outcome remains uncertain. Henry’s repeated calls for Clare suggest that, as before, their mutual love and support will be enough to get him through this ongoing predicament, but it’s becoming increasingly unlikely that that will happen.
Themes
Later. A doctor asks Clare how Henry managed to get this cold at the end of summer. Clare responds that he’ll have to ask Henry.
Clare is perhaps too concerned and afraid of possibly losing Henry to think of an excuse to explain Henry’s injuries to the doctor. As is often the case, Henry’s absence and where he went during doesn’t concern her—she just loves him and wants him to make it through so he can return to her.
Themes
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Later. Charisse has joined Clare in the hospital cafeteria. Kimy is upstairs keeping watch over Henry, who is asleep. Clare tries to eat but has no appetite. Dr. Kendrick comes down to the cafeteria to tell Clare that Henry’s body temperature is within a degree of normal now and there is no sign of damage to his brain from the hypothermia. Clare experiences a small amount of relief.
Clare’s love and fear for Henry is all consuming to the point that she cannot eat until she knows more about his current state. Dr. Kendrick’s update is somewhat positive, but he doesn’t specify whether Henry has incurred any permanent physical damage from his hypothermia.
Themes
Later. A doctor and nurse arrive to Henry’s hospital room to try to warm up his feet. They administer morphine first, promising it will be a painful process. Henry is hoisted upright while they lower the bed so his feet can reach the basin of hot water on the floor. As soon as his feet meet the water, Henry exclaims. The doctor tells him that any viable tissue will turn as red as a cooked lobster. Clare watches Henry’s feet, but the remain stark white. While some red shows on the ankles, heels, and toes of Henry’s left foot, it is not enough.
This scene indicates something of a reversal of the symbolism of white and red. Previously, red has symbolized Henry and Clare’s struggles and white has symbolized the possibility of fresh starts. But when Henry’s feet remain white—meaning he doesn’t have enough viable tissue, and so his feet must be amputated—it suggests the absence of a fresh start. Henry’s condition has finally harmed him to the point where neither Clare’s love nor Henry’s own attempts at self-love and self-care can reverse the damage he’s incurred.
Themes
The following night. Henry has undergone surgery earlier in the day to remove his frostbitten feet at the ankle. He is sleeping in his room now as Clare and Gomez sit on either side of his bed. Clare holds Henry’s hands; she can feel his heartbeat through the skin. She tries to distract herself with prayers but only children’s rhymes and French books come to mind. When Henry wakes up, he asks Clare what day it is. He tries to sit up and begins to scream when he realizes his feet have been amputated.
Henry’s time traveling has created a new obstacle toward his living in the here and now, causing him to sustain an injury that has resulted in the loss of his feet and thus rendering him physically, literally less present. His scream upon seeing his amputation suggests his shock and perhaps also his resistance to accepting his fate.
Themes
Tuesday, October 17, 2006 (Clare is 35, Henry is 43). Clare worries about Henry after he returns from the hospital. He spends a day in bed on morphine; he says and eats very little. Alba tries to help, but Henry can only manage bland thanks for his daughter. Clare reflects that while Henry is clearly here with her, it feels as though he has vanished. One day, Clare watches as Alba tries to talk to Henry. She asks him if he is dying, explaining that when older Alba visited, she told present Alba that Henry will die. He reassures her that he won’t die yet, but when Alba asks if he will get out of bed soon, Henry yells at her. Alba runs from the room, and Clare gathers her in her arms.
Henry’s drugged state and despondency over losing his feet make it difficult for him to be in the moment—and thus, he is unreceptive to the love and comfort his family tries to offer him. Clare’s observation about Henry being physically but not mentally or emotionally there reflects this point. Though he is physically here with then, his emotional distance makes him as far away as he is while on his time travels.
Themes
Wednesday and Thursday, October 18 and 19, and Thursday, October 2006 (Clare is 35, Henry is 43). Clare is in her studio trying to process the tragedy of Henry’s amputation. After creating sketches of her project, she begins to sculpt. She produces a rough male form before realizing all she really wants to create are the figure’s wings. She wants to create “a terrible angel.” Clare bends wire to create an eight-foot wingspan; the wings hover in the air, suspended from string. She retrieves deep red and black paint, then the fibers required for the paper she plans to make. She drinks coffee while the fibers process.
Clare uses her art to process the tragedy and trauma of Henry’s amputation, underscoring the transformative power of art. Her idea to construct wings and paint them with black and red paint indicates the internal struggle Henry’s decline in health has cost her and her efforts to use art to process it.
Themes
At that moment. Inside, Henry thinks that Annette is sitting on his bed, but when he opens his eyes, he sees Kimy. Kimy insists that Henry get out of bed and into his wheelchair, then she takes him to the bathroom. Henry is impatient and unhelpful, but Kimy ignores him. He removes his bandages and observes the incisions below the calf. With Kimy’s help, he manages to shave and get in the bathtub.
Henry’s imagining Annette, who has been dead for years, instead of Kimy, who is physically here with him, indicates how the trauma of his recent amputation has made it difficult for him to accept the reality of his present health setback.
Themes
Later. When the paper fibers finish cooking, Clare strains them from the water and proceeds to the next step: putting them in the blender. This tenderizes them, after which she adds the binding ingredients that will transform the fibers into a workable material. She removes the paper and places it in the press. After the paper has dried, Clare removes it from the press and begins layering it on the wire outlines of the wings. Clare rips the rest of the dry paper to shreds—later, it will become the wings’ feathers. After that, Clare plans to use black and red paint to form the “terrible angel” in her head.
While Henry struggles to come to terms with the reality of his health setback and accept the love his family offers him, Clare turns to her art to process the situation. In the novel, the color red represents the struggles of life, particularly those that inspire conflict and add tension to Henry and Clare’s relationship. Wings, meanwhile, represent freedom from those struggles. Clare’s art thus represents her desire to transcend the pain and suffering that Henry is presently experiencing—and which she, as his loving partner, experiences secondhand.
Themes
A week later, in the evening. Clare enlists Gomez to carry Henry out to the studio. Once Henry is inside, Gomez returns to the house. The piece Clare has created is hidden by a white sheet. She makes Henry coffee while telling him she created something on his behalf. He asks if it’s feet. Instead, Clare presents the wings. Henry is shocked by them; they are dark, “threatening but also redolent of longing, of freedom, of rushing through space.” As Henry looks at them, he remembers how it felt to run and run; he imagines running so fast he can fly. Henry kisses Clare and has the sensation of flying and being unburdened from his grief.
Henry’s observation about the wings explicitly reinforces the symbolism of wings in the novel as suggestive of “longing” and “freedom.” The emotion that the wings inspire in Henry—who has been so emotionless and distant since the amputation—is a testament to the transformative potential of art. Perhaps for the first time since his operation, he is able to be in the moment and to reciprocate the love and support that Clare has offered him.
Themes
