Time and Physicality in Sanders' Works

            I found it interesting how time seems to be a central theme of both stories, although in different ways. In “Old Man Alabama”, the question seems to be: what if you could change the past? Would you? In “Rhonda Honda”, the question pertains to embodiment and time—if you could change your appearance/make yourself younger, would you? What’s the importance of the body in terms of identity and aging? Is your age a physical manifestation in addition to a psychological development?

            Specifically, in “Old Man Alabama”, Sanders explores the relatives of Native Americans living a typical life in what I assume to be modern day America. Their traditions mix with the current times’ mundanities, including their medicine. It creates a sort of temporal dissonance as the two men in their “Walmart jeans” and “cheap nylon running shoes made in Singapore” discuss the outsider Old Man Alabama, a relic from another time. The two suspect that Alabama is up to something—and that something seeks to disrupt the past and thus erase the present. Alabama tells the two men, as they stand on an empty ship: “This is where it all started, you dumb blanket-asses! And I’m the one who went back and fixed it!” (58) This raises the question—how would the three Native American men’s lives change? Would they exist if Alabama had succeeded in getting rid of Columbus? What would be reality—or would anything change?

            In “Rohnda Honda”, the question of time falls into a specific category: aging. In this future world Sanders imagines, there exists a “morphing” technology. People can change their looks, their gender, and thus, their age. This acts as another way in which time is displaced. Instead of seemingly contradictory or oppositional concepts coexisting as in the last story, the entire idea of aging becomes a choice. If one wishes, they can easily change their appearance and any physical indicator of their mind. I began to wonder—does this “morphing” signify a triumph of mind over body? Has technology left the necessity for continuous, original, physical embodiment behind? This also seems to paint a paranoid future—after all, you can’t even trust your own eyes.

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