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quence has been realigned into linear form here, but as written, the novel is told in various kinds of flashbacks. A pattern of confusion about time results that is appropriate to the theme of the novel and even pleasing, though this may not be why Asimov chose to narrate the novel in that fashion. Contemporary literary critics using theories of structuralism and semiotics, who find themselves concerned about time, among other matters, might find interesting the varieties of time that exist within this novel, which deals with time, discusses time, swears by time ("Time!" and "Father Time!"), and was inspired by Time. |
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The End of Eternity deals with all sorts of time, from the time involved in the procession of the Centuries within Eternity (which is traveled spatially by kettle, although the kettles never move), the time that passes for the Eternals (physiotime), the times of entry into Time, the sequence of events within Time (our temporally bound definition), and the artifacts of Time that never was (that Eternity has altered out of Reality) that still are preserved within Eternity (such as the matter duplicator, the neuronic whip, and the dozens of variations of the works of a writer named Eric Linkollew). One person's time is not another person's time, of course, unless they may accidentally come together for a brief period, but each can describe it to others. |
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In the following outline, subdivided by chapters, the kinds of time within the narrative are identified in brackets by character initials and a sequence number. A minus ( - ) before the initial or number means that this sequence has been eliminated in at least one Reality. |
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Chapter 1. Harlan goes upwhen from the 575th to the 2456th to blackmail Sociologist Kantor Voy into calculating Nos's Life-Plot [H 19]. While there, he looks some twenty-five Centuries into the future to the time of electro-gravity space travel [ - 2481st 1]. |
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Chapter 2. Harlan, standing at the gateway to Time in the 2456th [H 20], recalls his experience as a Cub, after having spent fifteen years in Time (the 95th): his graduation, his four plus years as Observer and assignment to Finge at the 482nd, and the invitation from Twissell to be his personal Technician [H 2]. |
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Chapter 3. Harlan, still standing at the gateway to Time in the 2456th [H 21] and still recalling his earlier experience, recalls his meeting with Cooper and a year or so of experience as Twissell's Technician in the 575th [H 3]. He remembers Cooper telling him what he was as a Timer in the 78th [C 1]. One alteration of Reality for Twissell in the 223rd [223rd 1] resulted in the elimination of a war in the 224th [ -224th 1]. Then Harlan dreams of his mother [H 1]. |
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Chapter 4. Harlan, still standing at the gateway of Time in the 2456th |
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