43 pages • 1 hour read
Audrey NiffeneggerThe Time Traveler's Wife
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Essay Topics
What genres does the novel embody? How does it subvert these genres? Explain your reasoning with examples from the text.
How does the split first-person perspective between Clare and Henry affect how readers extract meaning from the novel? How would the novel differ if it were narrated exclusively by one or the other?
Henry has given Clare much information as to how her future plays out while she is young. How does knowing the future affect Clare?
The novel explores Free Will Versus Fate. Does it favor one over the other in terms of which force prevails in the characters’ lives? If so, how?
Many of the chapter titles are repeated in the novel. Why do you believe Niffenegger employed this strategy and how does it impact the reader?
Examine the chapters “Baby Dreams” and “Feet Dreams” side by side. How are these chapters similarly structured? What do their central images have in common?
Is Richard DeTamble a sympathetic character? Is he supposed to be? What does his behavior after Annette’s death suggest to the reader about grief?
Examine Henry’s taste in music. How does it and his other likes and dislikes represent his character?
What is the novel’s message about the meaning and existence of angels? Is Henry is supposed to be some kind of angel? Why or why not?
In his parting letter to Clare, Henry likens himself to Odysseus from Homer’s Odyssey. How does the novel’s message overlap with the epic, particularly Odysseus’s and Penelope’s relationship?
