Analyzation of Selected Chapter of "Einstein's Dreams"

        Although robust with allegories, all concerning different facets of societies and its values, Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman has many chapters than can relate to its readers in a very personal, yet allegorical manner. In the particular "dream" explored in the chapter dated 14 May 1905, a fictional Einstein dreams about a world where a center of time exists. In that world, time moves in a circumvent, creating a center where time moves markedly slower. The dream explores the notions of those who would journey to that center, and the actions that take place there.
        At that center of time, simple gestures can take an exponentially longer amount of physical time to execute. Quick, thoughtless actions such as "a brush of the hair might take a year" and when "a smile is returned, seasons pass in the outer world." While these mundane expressions typically register no lasting memories within a person, Lightman illustrates the effervescent quality of our existence and in everything we do. It may seem absurd to have when "a goodbye is said, cities crumble and are forgotten," but it causes the readers to stop and consider the significance and effects that each of our actions may have. While not attempting to cause us to proceed every action with overt carefulness and calculation, Lightman seeks to reveal how often we proceed through our daily lives with little to no thought or intent.
        The exploration into adding meaning into fleeting moments is further emphasized by the point that the only people to venture into that center of time are "parents with children, and lovers." Vague at first in its connections with one another, points are quickly created between lovers and parents with children as the reader comes to a realization: both are doomed to pain through the impermanence of their relationship. By traveling to the center of time, the lovers and parents attempt to eternally capture the most elementary of gestures that bind their relationships together. The innocence of youth and the child that parents will forever cherish are frozen in the center of time as children will "never stop smiling the smile [they] smile now... never grow wrinkled or tired, will never get injured will never unlearn what [their] parents have taught her, will never think thoughts that [their] parents don’t know, will never know evil." This causes the reader to draw a personal connection with the dream and their own relationship with their parents, and the poignant importance to a parent of having a child that "will never tell [their] parents that she does not love them."
        As with the relationship between parent and child, the affection between lovers is always transient, whether through emotional disconnections or physical separations. This causes the lovers to attempt the same sacrifice as the parents: forever capturing the short moments that create the intimacy of the relationship. Lovers travel to center of time to be seen "kissing in the shadows of buildings, in a frozen embrace that will never let go." While kissing and embracing are common, transitory actions within relationships, Lightman illustrates them as the physical manifestation of our emotions for our significant other, emphasizing the importance of putting through into such fleeting actions. At the center of time, there is no danger of the ephemeral. At the center of time, love is eternal because a lover "will never journey far from his lover, will never place himself in danger in self-sacrifice, will never fail to show his love, will never become jealous, will never fall in love with someone else."