Seconds is a story about a woman falling on tough times in her mid-twenties and finds an easy way to fix her problems. Katie runs the restaurant Seconds and is planning on leaving to start another restaurant down town. This is her dream and dreams play a big part in the repetitiveness that takes form throughout the story. Katie dreams and dreams about her future restaurant that her current one she brushes aside. Then her physical dreams become part of the story when it keeps her up at night to wake up and find the spirit sitting on her nightstand. When she’s awake all she does is dream. When she’s asleep the dreams wake her up.
Another example of repetitive form in Seconds is the constant self love and self hate that are mixed, especially when the character Hazel is in the scene. Like on page 61 Hazel is being eyed up and down by Katie while Katie goes over all the pros and cons of Hazel’s appearance and character along with comparing these qualities to herself. Katie talks about how pretty and perfect Hazel is and how she is not. Then she watches Hazel’s odd personality and compares it to herself having an amazing personality. This comparing and self-love and self-hate occurs over and over whenever Hazel is near.
Like Hazel, Max is another character that effects Katie to resort back to the past constantly. Max is interesting because he has no direct role to play in the main plot of Katie and the restaurant, early on. Max is a ghost from her past and constantly, I keep using the word constantly because it happens so often, keeps entering her brain whenever she is upset or mad. She always thinks back to the good times with him and wanting him around when things would go bad. This constant itch in her brain eventuality makes him enter the main plot and having him be hers again.
The main plot point of the story is Katie’s power to reverse time and change it so this motif of changing the past and effecting the future happens many times, more and more towards the end of the book. This motif happens so often you can almost see it coming before she leaps back in time. A problem arises and Katie is stressed out so as the reader already seeing this earlier in the story you now that Katie will just reverse time and fix whatever is bothering her in the present. Like Liam had mentioned in Blog #1, Katie constantly wants to live in the present because the past haunts her and the future has responsibility she does not want to deal with. This reversing time is constantly happening for Katie.
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This blog post does a good job at evaluating the multiple recurrent situations in the book. Because the book plays so heavily with the ideas of both time and acceptance, these instances of repetition play a key role in how the book should be read. In discussing the motif of the book, I would elaborate on its use of repetitive form. Specifically, I would examine the similarities and differences that you notice between each instance of Katie altering the past. This could include her motives, or her perception of how badly she messed up a situation. Throughout all of these instances, she holds tight to the belief that changing the past will always be better than letting things be. This lends heavily to the idea that Katie has a very hard time accepting herself as she is and accepting things as they’ve happened. This perpetual loop Katie endures is one of her own design, but she seeks to escape it through altering events and other people, not herself. Other than that, I might discuss how the format of a graphic novel impacts the way it is interpreted by a reader. It is quite possible that some of the visuals in the book are meant to either throw-off the reader or to have them believe something that isn’t necessarily true. All in all, this post is very successful in evaluating the form of this novel. Good work!
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You make a lot of interesting points in terms of the use repetitive form in “Seconds.” I really found your analysis on the repetitive of dreams in the book to be fascinating. Not only do you mention Katie’s dream of opening up a new restaurant in the future, but also the role that literal dreams which take place when Katie is asleep. You mention in your blog that, “When [Katie is] awake all she does is dream. When she’s asleep, the dreams wake her up,” which is a compelling way of putting it. Another point that you make in your blog post is the use of repetitive form when it come to how Katie regularly ventures into her past to alter her relationship with Max. As you noted in your post, “Max is a ghost from her past an constantly…enters her brain whenever she is upset or mad.” You make a really good point here and could elaborate more on this. Every time that Katie travels back in time, her relationship changes. The repetitive idea of Katie and Max’s relationship are in a constant state of flux is seen many times throughout the book and is not resolved until the very end. Overall, you make some pretty valid points when it comes to the use of repetitive form in this book.
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Great post! I find the motif that you propose interesting. You say, “The main plot point of the story is Katie’s power to reverse time and change it so this motif of changing the past and affecting the future happens many times, more and more towards the end of the book. This motif happens so often you can almost see it coming before she leaps back in time.” But I would argue that we see it coming before Katie even realizes what she’s about to do. I believe that spontaneity is a very strong character trait of Katie’s, so clearly she doesn’t think these things through. She just acts without considering the repercussions. I’m not convinced she even realizes that she has the ability to change the past when she goes and makes these stupid decisions. It’s more of an afterthought. She’s careless with it, really. (Or it could be that she really isn’t holding back now that she has this ability, but I’m under the impression that she was never one to hold back.) We even see Katie purposefully act in such a way that she knew she would regret (i.e getting drunk), planning on going back and reversing time (a solid hangover cure.) We see Katie acting carelessly/spontaneously (whatever you want to call it) so many times that we fall into a pattern. We can tell when she about to mess everything up, and then we know we’re about to turn the page and it’ll say Revision # whatever and then everything will have that red tint. When she says something to Max and then he gets upset, we know it’ll be a fight, or Max giving her the silent treatment, and then Katie will go back. We just know. We’re in the pattern. So basically, what I’m arguing is that we don’t “almost see it coming before she leaps back in time.” We know exactly what’s going to happen before the events even start to unravel in whatever relative present we’re in at that moment. We know before Katie even opens her mouth to say that thing she’ll regret. We just know.
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