11.22.63

Time travel is a common sci-fi theme that touches on ideas that have never been fully explored or explained in real time. No one really knows what would happen if a person were to go back in time and change a major event in history, but King uses the plot of this novel to play with that concept. One of King’s characters suggests that the death of President Kennedy in 1963 was directly related to race riots, assassinations, and war that followed in the years after his death. He wonders if those things would change if President Kennedy’s life were spared on that fateful afternoon in Dallas. This is a question many others have also wondered along with questions, such as whether President Kennedy’s assassin was a lone gunman. Given the opportunity to go back and find out, Jake jumps at the chance.

Time travel, on the surface, offers an opportunity to change things for the better. Jake goes to the past to change President Kennedy’s fate because he fully believes it is the right thing to do. This is the same reason he changes Harry Dunning’s past. Jake believes that stopping Frank Dunning from killing the majority of his family will give Harry a better life.