Einstein Dreams, by Alan Lightman Essay

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The novel, Einstein Dreams, by Alan Lightman addresses a lot of issues other than the fame of Albert Einstein. Writing with a sense of satire and whimsies, Lightman depicts a world whereby the laws of time operates under different conditions in every chapter of the book. The novel creates a fictional Einstein as he comes up with his famous theory of relativity. The purpose of the novel is to illustrate how a person's different experiences of times can greatly affect their perception and experience of the world and the people around them. The novel is a reflection on the nature of time and humanity. Time is one aspect of life that we all have equally, and most of us take it for granted. When we think of time, what comes to our mind is the hour, minute, and second; however, Einstein had a different idea of time. He thought of time in different ways and angles and often had thoughts and dreams. Therefore he spent a lot of his time trying to define what time is.
Alan Lightman highlights various idea and concepts in his novel. The central ideas and purpose of writing Einstein Dreams is; time, humanity, and free will. The fictional Einstein is completely preoccupied with his theories of time which he mostly dreams about. Using Einstein dreams and imaginations of how time works, Lightman depicts how people try to survive, love, and grow in a world where time defines every nature of our lives. The author shows how people become unhappy when they try to manipulate time and try to take advantage of it even though they cannot fully understand how it works. We all experience time equally, and people use it differently, some make better use of it while others simply waste it. Lightman explains how the theories of Einstein help...