Harbour Bridge
The Harbour Bridge in Sydney, Australia is a spectacular architectural construction that has come to be as iconic as the Opera House. The absence of its majestic appearance is one of the first thing Abigail notices upon her travel back in time just as its reappearance informs her of the reality of her return. The bridge becomes a central symbol of the progress and forward march of civilization.
The Time Machine
This novel features one of the strangest time travel mechanisms in the history of the genre, but one resonant with symbolism. The means by which Abigail is pulled backward through time is initially described as “a strangely shaped piece of yellowed crochet.” That it is a work of Victorian crochet that is the surprising mechanism for the futuristic idea of time travel is absolutely brilliant in its symbolism, working on the level of family heirlooms passed down through generations as well as intensifying of value for relics from the past as they age into the future.
Modern Medicine
Samuel Bow suffers PTSD as a result of a war injury which challenges his ability to be a breadwinner for his family. Gibbie requires constant attention because of various undiagnosed and untreated maladies which turn out to be symptoms of a mental disorder requiring constant attention. Typhoid fever, smallpox and other various assorted diseases and medical condition which are either treatable or have been practically eliminated in Abigail’s time are constant threats and the specter of the potential consequences of these threats have the effect of, Abigail notices, of making the past a “more human world” than the one she knows. Modern medicine thus become a symbol of the selfishness, disposability and inhumanity of the modern age.
The Gift
The Gift is described explicitly as a precious legacy passed from one generation to the next that endows the recipient with the ability to see the future and the acquisition of “secret wisdom.” As Abigail discovers at the end of the novel, however, this gift is revealed to have hollow foundation: just because one can see into the future does not mean that one can change it. This revelation transforms the Gift into something more concretely symbolic. It is essentially the same as knowing that history repeats, watching as history is being repeated, and the helpless of having no power to stop it from being repeated.
he Beatie Bow Game
It is the playing of the game “Beatie Bow” which initiates Abigail’s travel backward through time. It is a display of the way in which history is distilled over time into myth, legend and, sometimes, games. “Playing Beatie Bow” is thus symbolic of the manner in which the past informs the present and still has an impact upon people long after events have taken place in ways that often go unrealized or unrecognized.
