Race & Racism in The Time Traveler’s Wife

By Guest Contributor Aliya; an earlier version of this post can be found at Sanctuary

(*I will try to keep spoilers to a minimum*)

When I started reading The Time Traveler’s Wife, I was already aware that in the movie version of the book, Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams were cast to play Henry DeTamble and Clare Abshire. So I was already aware that the two main characters were white, and I didn’t really bat an eye at it – most successful authors (particularly if their book is becoming a movie) choose white protagonists for whatever reasons (or without even considering other options).

But as I was reading, I started to notice a trend – in contrast to the white main characters, who were rich, musicians, lawyers, artists, etc – and versed in punk music as well as opera, and in German, French and English literature, the characters of color were either silent, strange, and/or did not speak English, but rather english, or slang/broken/obviously-second-language English.

Which annoyed me.

Don’t get me wrong; as an English Major, I fully enjoyed the book, and consider it possibly one of my favorites.  To deny the racism/lack of race in the “usual” favorites – Pride & Prejudice, A Tale of Two Cities, Wuthering Heights, etc, or in the general canon of English Literature is a bit ridiculous – so I have come to accept that many books I love were born out of a time of racism, or have subtle or overt racism in them themselves…(Did you know Heathcliff might’ve been a person of color??)

But the fact that representation after representation of smart, intelligent, or ‘worthy’ characters in the Time Traveler’s Wife were white…troubled me. There are flaws to the white characters, but their “flaws” are human flaws – they somehow never struck me as weird, and they never took away from their roles in Henry’s life as saviors and friends, respectable and intelligent.

There are two major characters of color in the book who seem to get wrapped up in stereotypes. First, there is Mrs. Kim, or “Kimy” as Henry calls her – his “crazy Korean card-playing babysitter” (28).

Kimy

The major stereotype/characterization of Mrs. Kim is arguably be a reflection of realities: throughout the 30 + years of the novel, she speaks English as a non-Native speaker, rather than English. While English is a difficult language to learn through immersion without grammar lessons, it was also, on first glance, unneccessary for Niffenegger to make Mrs. Kim to speak English. The significance that emerged, at least for me, was that Mrs. Kim’s english syntax made her ‘other’, ‘different’, and cemented her place as a person of color rather than a mother figure to Henry.

Considering that Henry “spent most of my waking hours with Kimy”, that she had been in America for over 30 years throughout the novel, that she was close friends with the DeTambles – a great violinist, and an opera singer, and that she lived in the same apartment building and frequently takes care of Henry well into his adulthood, it struck me as odd that in world of eloquent dialogue and literary/upper-class references, Mrs. Kim never stopped speaking in broken ESL-english throughout the novel. After Henry’s mother dies, and his father becomes alcoholic, it is left on Mrs. Kim to raise Henry who would become fluent in English, German and French.

Now, I’m not saying that someone who doesn’t speak standard English can’t be friends with the DeTambles of the world, or cannot (or haven’t) raised intelligent, successful children who speak multiple languages to study European literature. On the contrary, women from less privileged countries frequently raise the children of richer (often white) families, and women who don’t speak English can (and do) raise their own children to be successful, intelligent and multilingual. However, in Audrey Neffenegger’s constructed world, by simultaneously denying Mrs. Kim the eloquence of the white companions with whom she is always immersed, and by characterizing her as a “crazy Korean” – she seems to deny Mrs. Kim the equality or respect an adult would otherwise automatically demand.

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