Time has always been a subject of fascination. Time can’t be touched. It’s not a physical entity, yet there are all sorts of ways to manipulate time. Time can be captured, ignored, destroyed, created, felt, cherished, and seen, as if it were the living embodiment of a person. Many people dispute what time actually is, for now the best explanation of time is that it is a unit of measurement of a string of random moments that occur in a progressive sequence. Time has been always been an exploratory subject for scholars and authors alike. It has inspired many stories, films, and inventions. This is because, especially in the case of authors, time has a hypnotizing effect that allows for alternative possibilities and preferred future outcomes, rather than being stuck in the weighted
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When an author writes a time travel narrative the author must consider the effects that changes will have upon ethical standards, history, mortality, free will, and self-identity. For instance Octavia Butler tackles the nature of self-identity, in her novel Kindred, by having Dana experience real life situations in two different realities, leaving her altered forever never truly being a part of either time. She also gives graphic first hand illustration of what ethics should be and why they should be as they are, especially in her depiction of American slavery, making history come alive. Authors must also question the possibility of free wills existence, sometimes even contradicting each other. For instance in Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol free will exists and it is up to the individual to choose their fate. Where as in Robert Heinlein’s By His Bootstraps free will is entirely an illusion. Nevertheless, it is the manner in which rules that make up modern reality can be playful questioned and explored that makes time travel narratives so intriguing to the
When an author writes a time travel narrative the author must consider the effects that changes will have upon ethical standards, history, mortality, free will, and self-identity. For instance Octavia Butler tackles the nature of self-identity, in her novel Kindred, by having Dana experience real life situations in two different realities, leaving her altered forever never truly being a part of either time. She also gives graphic first hand illustration of what ethics should be and why they should be as they are, especially in her depiction of American slavery, making history come alive. Authors must also question the possibility of free wills existence, sometimes even contradicting each other. For instance in Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol free will exists and it is up to the individual to choose their fate. Where as in Robert Heinlein’s By His Bootstraps free will is entirely an illusion. Nevertheless, it is the manner in which rules that make up modern reality can be playful questioned and explored that makes time travel narratives so intriguing to the