63 pages • 2 hours read
The Time Keeper
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Themes
Humans’ Relationship with Time
The Time Keeper is, from its outset, “a story about the meaning of time” as it relates to humanity (7). Within the fable, Dor is a mythical figure who establishes mathematics, measuring, and timekeeping out of his curiosity and his desire to understand the rhythmic patterns he sees in nature. When the old man asks Dor why he began measuring, Dor explains that he simply wanted “[t]o know” (47). This impulse for knowledge is not necessarily seen as an evil in and of itself, but both for Dor and for the human beings who will come after him, timekeeping becomes an obsession. Eventually, once timekeeping has become mainstream—due directly to Dor’s timekeeping devices—people tie their individual identities to the concept of time. Throughout the novel, the most unhappy people have a dissatisfied relationship with time, and the Albom suggests that people should learn to accept the nature of time without trying to control it.
The narrator challenges the reader to “imagine a life without timekeeping” precisely because it is something most human beings take for granted (8). Human beings orient themselves in time—hours, minutes, days, months, and years. This orientation, though, is not seen as providing stability to humans. Instead, it is presented as a source of misery since it reminds humans of the precariousness of their existence. The measurement of time coupled with humans’ mortality makes human beings hyperaware of time as a limited commodity, and the voices of human beings that Dor hears in the pool made from his tears ceaselessly ask for more time or for time to stop with an appetite that is “endless” (61).
Like the other human beings whose voices Dor hears in the pool, both Sarah and Victor limit their identities to their relationship with time. Sarah and Victor repeatedly orient themselves and their actions in time. When Sarah is first going to meet with Ethan, she ties her excitement to the exact time of their “date,” 8:30. She perceives the evening as a countdown until she receives his text cancelling their date and then the countdown begins again once they have scheduled another day and time. Time is the buffer between their meetings. Victor, on the other hand, is not interested in counting down the time he has left since he is not ready to accept his own mortality. Instead, he seeks an alternative that will pause time for him until he can resume living. Victor refuses to accept time as a limited and precious commodity. Albom resolves their dissatisfaction with time by suggesting that humans should appreciate time as a precious resource rather than something to be controlled, bought, or bargained for.
The Need to Live in the Present
Dor, Sarah, and Victor all struggle with living in the present because they don’t acknowledge the precious nature of time as a limited commodity for mortal human beings. Within Dor’s vision of the future, when humanity remains young and healthy for longer and longer periods of time, humans have lost the ability to experience emotions, which makes Victor’s memories particularly potent for those viewing them. When time becomes too commonplace or when one focuses too intently on other things, Albom suggests that the present moment becomes obscured, as does one’s understanding of life.
Obsession with other things renders individual moments unimportant in the text. For Dor, his desire to perfect timekeeping and measuring leads him to take for granted many of the moments he shares with his family, particularly with Alli. His obsession with measuring also alienates him from his society, ultimately leading to his banishment, and he doesn’t feel the loss of their community as strongly as Alli does because he has created a distance between himself and his community. Once Dor becomes immortal, transforming into Father Time, individual moments lose their meaning because time stretches on without any clear end and with no clear purpose. Given a second chance, Dor savors his last moments with Alli rather than trying to extend them because he knows that they are limited and because they feel rare after so many thousands of years apart from her.
Sarah and Victor likewise struggle to live in the present because they allow their fears to shape their understanding of time and its relation to their lives. Victor sees his limited time and failing health as a loss of power. He has prided himself throughout his life on his successes, mortality feels like a failure, and so he determines to defeat death as he has done so many other challenges during his lifetime. By focusing on the future, he neglects the present and his relationship with Grace. When given a second chance, he prioritizes his relationship with her and ensures that he has made a positive difference in the world during his life and after his death. Sarah interprets her present and future through the embarrassment and pain of her heartbreak. When she is given a second chance, she learns to look around her, at people such as her mother or the guests at the shelter, and appreciate the present moment.
Acceptance of One’s Mortality
Nim’s tower is a monument to his power and an attempt, on his part, to wrench power away from the gods. Dor’s measuring and timekeeping is similarly viewed as an attempt to control divine forces. Because Nim’s affront to the gods is violent, the response is likewise violence as the tower breaks apart and those climbing it are thrown to earth. Dor’s slow and steady study of time is met with a slow and painstaking imprisonment in a cave. Though humanity attempts to shake off its limitations and usurp the power of God, as the old man tells Dor in the cave, “[t]he length of your days does not belong to you” (47). Dor, Sarah, and Victor all struggle to accept their own mortality and acknowledge that individual human beings cannot control the passage of time. The novel ultimately suggests that accepting mortality is necessary because it allows people to appreciate life more.
The old man, a servant of the most high God, cryptically contends that God has a master plan and that no one can fully escape it, not even Dor, whose life has been spared. When Alli is dying of the plague, Dor realizes that his knowledge is insufficient to save her, and since he conceives the world in terms of time, the conclusion he arrives at is that he must stop time in order to preserve her life. Dor focuses only on his objective, to stop Alli’s suffering, but the old man questions Dor’s actions. By the end, Dor realizes that the best way to reduce Alli’s suffering is to be with her and accept their mortality together.
Both Sarah and Victor attempt to change the course of their lives and the amount of time allotted to them without considering the consequences of their actions. Victor is determined to live another lifetime through cryonics without considering what the future he might live in would look like. He assumes that his current power and wealth will follow him into the future, and he is horrified when he sees that his future existence lacks any agency or power and is instead entrapped and dehumanized. Sarah chooses to cut her life short because she wants to end the humiliation and pain she feels. She hopes that by dying by suicide she’ll be able to control the feelings of others toward her, making Ethan regret his decisions, but in the vision Dor shows Sarah, her death hasn’t caused Ethan any misery and has instead devastated her mother, whom Sarah never wanted to hurt. Both learn that death is not something to be controlled but rather accepted.
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By Mitch Albom
