Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass: Discontinuity of Time or Time Loss
Dr. Gotard has revealed the peculiar relationship between time at the sanatorium and time in Joseph’s hometown. These two places exist both parallel with each other and in a linear progression – with the world of the sanatorium lagging behind the other world in time. This paradoxical relationship between these two worlds means that Joseph’s father can be both alive and dead, and it is this feature that forms the core of the story. This paradoxical relationship also means that Schulz is not talking about some sci-fi type time travel here, for then the past would simply be the past – even if an alternative past. The “past” of the sanatorium, however, is also the “present,” reflecting a perceptual shift in how one relates to ideas of time. Joseph, for example, exists both in the temporal framework of his hometown and amid that of the sanatorium, conscious of both. What accounts for this ability or need to re-imagine the relationship between past and present? It would seem that the emotional content surrounding his father’s death motivates him to reconcile these paradoxical notions.
Once this basic paradox is accepted, nothing exists to hold time to any orderly structure in the world of the sanatorium. As such, time in the story is discontinuous, inconsistent, and illogical. After explaining how people here sleep at irregular times and in strange, random places, Joseph describes the relationship between people and time at the sanatorium:
Waking up, still dazed and shaky, one continues the interrupted conversation or the wearisome walk, carries on complicated discussions without beginning or end. In this way, whole chunks of time are casually lost somewhere; control over the continuity of the day is loosened until it finally ceases to matter; and the framework of uninterrupted chronology that one has been disciplined to notice every day is given up without regret. The compulsive readiness to account for the passage of time, the scrupulous penny-wise habit of reporting on the used-up hours – the pride and ambition of our economic system – are forsaken. Those cardinal virtues, which in the past one never dared to question, have long ago been abandoned.
| Previous page on path | Dream Time, page 9 of 19 | Next page on path |
Discussion of "Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass: Discontinuity of Time or Time Loss"
Add your voice to this discussion.
Checking your signed in status ...