Cloud Atlas And The Horrible Ordeal Of Timothy Cavendish

Time is â€Å"the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present and future regarded as a whole† (Oxford Dictionary). David Mitchell uses his novel Cloud Atlas to explore this complicated concept gravely. Even through the way the novel is laid out (in layers with only half of each story given at first), each story noticeably intersects and interacts with shared characters – either in the flesh or the reincarnations of them. Similarly, this layout exhibits an attempt at postmodernist ideas as well as metafictional ideas as the stories and ideas constantly overlap even when they are in different time frames. In Cloud Atlas, the stories and protagonists within â€Å"Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery† and â€Å"The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish† further enhance the greater novel’s concept of time through various measures. These measures include the simple use of language, the exploration of reincarnation, the race against time, and memories and how our remembrance of them affects us. Mitchell’s choice of tense and narration exemplifies how time and timelines affect each story. Luisa Rey’s story is told in the present tense in the third person. However, this story also incorporates focalization shifts and point of view changes between characters. For Example, chapter seventeen is told from Sixsmith’s perspective while the chapter following is told from Bill Smoke’s perspective. In Chapter 17, Sixsmith notices that the window of his room is open and that