The Wind-Up Bird and Tuesday's Women.- 09/12/2008

Discussing time.

"At 5:30, the telephone rings twelve times; but I don't pick up the receiver.  After the ringing has died away, a lingering hollowness hovers about the dark room like drifting dust.  The clock atop the TV strikes an invisible panel of space with its brittle claws.  A regular wind-up toy world this is, I think.  Once a day the wind-up bird has to come and wind the springs of this world. Alone in this fun house, only I grow old, a pale softball of death swelling inside me.  Yet even as I sleep somewhere between Saturn and Uranus, wind-up birds everywhere are busy at work fulfilling their appointed rounds."

This passage is important because it portrays the main character's view on time and life.  Life to him is like a wind-up toy.  It is something that keeps on going and going until it's predestined time runs out.  The main character seems to be obsessed with this idea. He is always either checking his watch or limiting himself to a certain amount of time to do something.

The first line of passage supports the theme of time.  Many paragraphs begin with the time at that moment to stress how everything is being clocked and how our time in this seemingly immortal world is finite.  The last line of the selected passage supports this idea.  The juxtaposition of the planets, the infinite, and the wind-up birds, the finite, highlights the discrepancy between one's world and one's life.