Why does Quentin break the watch?
I mean he doesn’t even break the watch fully! He crushes the glass, twists off the hands and yet the watch still ticks and the face is presumably still remains. I highly doubt that he was unable to make the swatch stop ticking entirely; so, why on the last day break the watch only sort of?
His father gave him the watch to keep track of time and so “that [he] might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it” (76). That must have been too much to ask of him because we see what he does to the watch. I thought maybe Quentin saw it as his path to breaking time. And that was essentially what the whole day was about, was it not? He is out to create order in his life before he stops time. He utilized the time on his last day to prepare to break it and kill himself. The watch breaking may have been preparation for suicide; it was a family heirloom that he was ruining, something valuable that has history. He is something more valuable, has a similar history to the watch and he is going to do more than just sort of break himself later. I know many may think it is breaking time, but if he were to really do that, wouldn’t he stop it from ticking? I really think he was breaking from his family and practicing for the moment when he going to break with time forever more.
No comments:
Post a Comment