Dor or Father of Time

A. Characteristics and Inner Conflicts of the Characters

In this part, the characteristics and inner conflicts of each character is analyzed. There are three characters and some of them have some fragmented background stories in the novel that provide important ideas for the analysis. Therefore, some of the characters are analyzed starting from their past.

1. Dor or Father of Time

Dor is a character from the past. He is also known as the ‘Father Time’ in this nov el. When he is still a child, the narrator describes him as “a gentle, an obedient child, but his mind goes deeper than those around him” Albom, 2012: 7. He is a kind person and he acts gentle toward anyone. As seen in the novel, he is even able to listen to Sarah when she cannot stop telling about Ethan. Besides, he also thinks about a child that might have the same destiny as Sarah who was being left by someone that she loves. His concern is obviously seen in the following sentences: Now Dor looked at Sarah, remembering that moment. He wondered what became of young Gildesh —was she rejected by men as this Sarah had been? He thought about his son’s stone flying across the yard, the youthful idea that you could toss away the future if you didn’t like it —and he realized, suddenly, what he needed to do. Albom, 2012: 186 The previous information given by the narrator emphasizes Dor’s kind heart which is able to think about someone who is actually not related with him or his life. Thus, he is a kind person and he has a gentle heart. Meanwhile, the previous quotation also states that he is different from the others. In fact, he is different because he is the only person in that era that does something unusual, measuring. While other men are busy to show power and glory, he buries himself in measurements. He is the first person on Earth to attempt this —counting, making numbers. He began by matching one finger to another, giving each pairing a sound and a value. Soon, he was counting anything he could. Albom, 2012: 7 By that explanation, it is clear that Dor is a clever person. At that era, he could understand and create the concept of measuring without any help. He creates the whole concepts and ideas by himself and he is able make it as his groundwork in his following research. Even though he is considered as ‘different’ and strange, he shows the quality of being clever even from his era. When the others still use their muscle and myth in their life, he starts to think with his mind and logic. The quality of being a curious person also follows his clever trait. As he starts to measure everything, he finds something interesting when he sees the shadow of the sun. When he sees how the shadow goes with the sun, he realizes that “every day contains one such moment” Albom, 2012: 12. When he becomes an adult, he continues his research about ‘the same moment’ and he uses water and a bowl to do his experiment. He is waiting all day and night to see whether his assumption is right or not. Normally, people would never be patient enough to see that the water drips carefully, but his curiosity wins over his anxiety. Besides that, he also decided to learn all of the knowledge from Sarah’s and Victor’s era. Once he could read, all knowledge was within reach. He immersed himself in a library in Madrid, reading more than a third of the volumes. He read history and literature, studied maps and oversized photo books. Albom, 2012: 101 For normal people, reading more than a third of the volumes takes forever. But for him who has the gift of slowing time, he could finish everything in an instant. This description from the narrator shows that he still has great curiosity when he comes to Sarah’s and Victor’s era. If he only thinks about the question from the old man, he would neve r want to learn anything else but about the ‘time’ that he has created before by measuring moments. Thus, he is a man with high curiosity. Dor is also a stubborn person. He does not want to change his mind even though he is given all of the things that most men want to have. He stays with his measurements. This stubbornness could be seen from this fragment: When their conversation finished, Nim grabbed one of the sun sticks. “I will take this with me,” he said. “Wait—“ Nim pulled it to his chest. “Make another. Bring it when you come to help with the tower.” Dor looked down. “I cannot help you.” Nim ground his jaw back and forth. “Why not?” “I have my work.” Nim laughed. “Putting holes in bowls?” “It is more than that.” “I not ask again.” Dor said nothing. “As you wish.”Nim exhaled. He stepped to the doorway. “But you must leave the city.” “Leave?” “Yes.” “Where?” “That does not concern me.” Nim examined the carvings on the sun stick. “But go far. If you do not, my men will force you onto the tower—as they the others.” Albom, 2012: 20-21 Nim is his childhood friend. When he offered Dor a job, it is only natural to suppose that he offers him the luxury along with it. However, Dor decides that his work is far more important than helping his childhood friend to build the tower and to show his power. He stays with his choice even though Nim sees this choice of him as a strange choice. He even decides to keep on measuring even if it makes him have to go away from the city. From the earlier fragment, we could also see additional events that showed his manner toward the measuring. Dor would never acquire wealth. He would never fill Alli’s lap with silver and gold. All the goats, sheep, and oxen belonged to his brothers or his father, who often swatted Dor for wasting his time with silly measures. His mother cried when she saw him hunched over his work. She felt the gods have left him feeble. “Why could you not be more like Nim?” she asked. Albom, 2012: 16-17 From those two fragments, we could see that he is stubborn enough to keep on doing the measurements even though the people around him were against it. Besides that, we could also see that he is also selfish. When he chose to keep on doing his measurement, he does not think about how his wife and children would be if they have to live far away from the city. Even though the children are kept by their grandparents, his wife decides to join him. Despite the fact that Alli loves him so much that she would share his misery, he does not really care about her and still stays busy with his own world, measuring. Dor stood up. “Where are you going?” Alli asked. “I must try something.” “Stay with me.” But Dor moved to the rocks. He poured water into a small bowl, then placed a larger one beneath it. He removed a piece of clay plugged inside a hole in the upper bowl —the one Nim had mocked—and the water began to drip through, one silent splash after one another. “Dor?”Alli whispered. He did not look up. “Dor?” She pulled her arms around her knees. What would become of them? She thought. Where would they go? She lowered her head and squeezed her eyes shut. If one were recording history, one might write that at the moment man invented the world’s first clock, his wife is alone, softly crying, while he is consumed by the count. Albom, 2012: 25 At this event, he only thinks about his work. He could not care less about his wife and decides to focus more on his work. He even does not realize that his wife is crying softly. By all of those descriptions and fragments, it can be seen that he is selfish in his stubbornness to maintain his endless measurements of time. Normally, people would realize if the person next to them is crying, but he does not. By ignoring his wife, he could be stated as a selfish person. Apart from his selfishness, he also loves his wife so much so that his mind is in conflict. As the result, he falls into despair and he decides to climbs the tower in order to seek power for controlling time. He falls into desperation as he realizes that his wife is sick and her time probably would not be much longer anymore. He has known that he only has his time measures and he has her. He does not want to lose her. Before he falls into desperation, he asks the gods to stop everything —to stop time —so that he could seek for Asu who would be able to cure her. But at the same time, he starts to hate his own measurements which are too accurate. It makes him understand that time would always move as it is always moving. Therefore, caused by the inner conflict, he climbs the tower. However, rather than die when the tower crumbles, he awakens in a cave. “Is this death?” “You were spared from death.” “To die here instead?” “No. In this cave, you will not age for a moment.” Dor looked away, ashamed. “I deserve no such gift.” “It’s not a gift,” the old man said. Albom, 2012: 46 Then, the old man asks him about his unusual behavior and his measurement. “Why did you measure the days and nights?” Dor looked away. “To know,” he answered. “To know?” “Yes.” “And what do you know. . .” the old man asked “about time?” Time? Albom, 2012: 47 Dor finally realizes that he understands nothing. He has to live in the cave and “understand the consequences of counting the moments” Albom, 2012: 47. He has to understand what ‘time’ is, the thing that he has created. Since he has lived forever and it seemed like he has to live for another eternity in the cave, he thinks that the world offers nothing more for him. The loneliness is killing his soul. Yet, he could not die. He wants the power to stop the time only so that he could save his wife, but then he has to understand what time really is. Again, his mind is in conflict, but he could not do anything this time. He finally listens to the voices in the cave and he grew to be a patient man, as he had nothing else to do for eternity. But even though he becomes more patient, he is consumed by the feeling of loneliness. Therefore, he starts to reflect on what he has done before. Because of his loneliness and his deep reflections, he tries to draw the symbols to remember his wife and his children. His mind is in conflict again as he realizes that he was too busy with his time measurements in the past. He is forgetting his wife and he realizes that he should have spent more time with her. As he thinks more and more about that, he becomes sad for he could do nothing. When he meets the other two characters, the descriptions of his characteristics are described by the other two characters. The characteristics explained from them are the physical appearance of Do r. From Sarah’s point of view, he is attractive when she first met Dor: He returned from the back with a serious-looking guy, mussed brown hair, a black turtleneck. Kind of handsome, Sarah thought. Albom, 2012: 119 And Dor appears youthful from Victor’s point of view: From the back stepped a man whom Victor guessed to be in his mid- thirties, leanly muscled, his dark hair mussed and uneven. He wore a black turtleneck. Victor tried to guess his nationality. Strong cheekbones. Somewhat flattened nose. Middle Eastern? Maybe Greek? Albom, 2012: 110 Combining those two descriptions, we could conclude that Dor has dark, brown hair. Based on his background, he looked as if he is still in his mid-thirties since he has the gift that he would not look nor grow older. He also has a good appearance since Sarah thought that he is handsome. He has strong cheekbones and a flattened nose. The strong cheekbones strengthen his stubborn characteristic and it reflects that he is a hard person to deal with. Meanwhile with his experience of staying in the cave and limitless time given to him, he is patient enough to listen to anybody, even to listen to Sarah who is incessantly talking about Ethan. His task to understand time often makes his mind in conflicts. He understands he loves the word ‘time flies’ that Sarah asked him to carve in her watch. Nevertheless, he still could not understand why he was given the power over time and the sacred gift to live for eternity without aging. He then understands the reason for that gift after he saved Sarah and Victor. He understands that he should just enjoy the time instead of endlessly measuring it. At the end, he even is able to convince Sarah that she has to believe in hope and he taught Victor to make every moment precious. Then, he was sent back to his time and decided to leave his measuring so that he could enjoy more time with his wife. In summary, his inner conflict clearly appears when Alli is sick. At that time, he was praying and he hates his knowledge about the time measurements. He knew that he could do nothing to stop time. So he keeps on praying until he could not wake his wife anymore. Yet, he is stubborn enough to try and he climbs the tower to ask for the power. He then realizes in his banishment if he is not living at the moment, instead, he is consumed by the measuring. Therefore, when he comes back to his era, he leaves his time measures and begins enjoying the moments of life with his wife.

2. Sarah Lemon