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Chapter 39
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
October/November 2006 (Henry is 43). Henry dreams he is giving a lecture at the library about early printed books. When he opens the box holding his visual example, he finds his feet sitting there in perfect condition. They are animated, toes flexing. As Henry lectures, a young woman points out that the skin is turning white. In another dream, Henry is running at the lake. All is well until pieces of his body start dropping away. He loses his arms and his penis and only stops jogging when his feet fall away. In Henry’s last dream, he is a ballerina getting ready in the dressing room. His feet hurt, but he refuses to look at them. He dances through the pain, finishing his routine to loud applause.
Henry’s dream suggests that, despite the love and feeling he showed in response to Clare’s artwork in the previous chapter, he is still struggling to accept the reality of his present condition—of the amputation of his feet. Yet his dream’s optimistic final scene, where Henry dances through his pain, suggests that he is determined to embrace himself as he is and come out on top in the end, even if he is struggling to do so at present.
Themes
Friday, November 3, 2006 (Henry is 43). Henry attempts to teach Clare to cook; he starts small, showing her how to peel and chop an onion. They try a new mainstay dish each day, starting with pasta sauce and moving into desserts, eggs, fish, and pizza. Still, Clare is afraid while she makes her first solo dinner. She completes the task despite a minor burn, and Henry and Alba toast to her as she serves them. As she watches Henry eat, she internally begs him not to leave.
The mundane task of peeling and chopping an onion indicates Clare and Henry’s determination to exist in the present and make the most of their moments together, even the mundane ones. Still, Clare’s internal pleas that Henry not leave her show that her knowledge of his impending death—a death she has no way of stopping—take her out of the moment.
Themes
