The Perception of the Flow of Time in Miomir Petrović’s Krotitelji vremena and Ian McEwan’s The Child in Time
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18485/kis.2025.57.186.13Keywords:
time, loss, existence, time inversion, epiphanyAbstract
As a cardinal part of how people comprehend the world and reality, the notion of time has fascinated scientists and literary scholars alike. Modern science defines time as a part of space-time continuum that, viewed in an abstract manner, represents a coordinate system where physical events take place. The plasticity of space and time has been employed by authors to enable their literary characters’ intervening in the past for the purpose of understanding or even changing the present and/or future. Based on Zorica Đergović Joksimović’s idea of time as an active and equal participant in the novel, this paper has shown different aspects of time as a literary instrument that sheds light on as well as darken the topoi of loss and (non)existence in Ian McEwan’s The Child in Time (1987) and Miomir Petrović’s Krotitelji vremena [Time Tamers] (2023). The two novels have been compared and contrasted considering the approach and treatment of the topoi mentioned.
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