Time and Space
Hey E319 Students,
How does time and space play a role in "Between Timid and Timbuktu"? Why does materialization have a negative connotation?
(Jay Mehta Approved)
posted by Jay Mehta @ 12/15/2011
2 comments
Thursday, December 15, 2011
How does time and space play a role in "Between Timid and Timbuktu"? Why does materialization have a negative connotation?
(Jay Mehta Approved)
2 Comments:
In response to the second question: Materialization definitely has a negative connotation simply because of the way Kurt Vonnegut continuously compares it to a hanging. The way he so nonchalantly uses the words “modern” and “civilized” when describing a hanging makes me think that this type of event is typical, rather than out of the ordinary in Newport. On the third page of Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut uses more words that hold negative connotations much like materialization. Two of these words that I found include: “mysteries” and “morbid”. Even the phrase “blank stone walls”, which follows my previous two examples in the text, gives me the sense that this materialization is certainly not a positive event.
-Jori Nelson P:3
In the chapter, “Between Timid and Timbuktu,” it is described that the title was “derived from the fact that all the words between timid and Timbuktu in very small dictionaries relate to time” (Vonnegut 6). By having the capability of materializing, Rumfoord can travel through space while existing in more than one place at the same time. In order for the materialization to take place, the objects in space must be in a certain alignment, beginning with the Sun and ending with Betelgeuse. Therefore, time and space connect through materialization and the chrono-synclastic infundibulum. As for connotation, the crowd wishing to view the materialization take place was described “very much like a crowd outside the walls at a hanging” while the materialization itself was “like a, modern, civilized hanging” (Vonnegut 2). Without thinking about the comparison, one might think that a materialization is a positive event due to the number of spectators finding pleasure from it, but a hanging itself has a negative connotation to it, especially because it deals with death, so materialization has a negative connotation.
-Sarah Richter (Period 2)
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