First, I had to consider a timeline of some significance to the book, Never Let Me Go. So, a central event in later chapters is the trip that Ruth, Kathy and Tommy take to see the boat, and the events that surround that trip. One thing I saw as I read through the text that made mention of the boat was how far off and distant it was to the characters at first. It was a concept, and just a plot on a map. They only had secondhand descriptions provided by others that had visited the boat. So, when considering a visual, of course, it is like when one is going to a new place and looks up the location on a map. One only sees the roads and lakes as presented in a map. It is theoretical and hypothetical. It is an unrealized place as it is a place never stood in before. We see the characters as they dive into the mystery of the boat and its location, and they show courage to make the trip, and to see what they have heard about.
The timeline considers the perspective of the characters in relation to the boat. The multimedia sources demonstrate the perspective of the characters as they encounter different scenes and perspectives in the story. As the characters approach the boat, we get a visual that shows what is being described as a marshland. The final visual in my timeline is the detail of a boat, which is demonstrated in the story. The characters focus so much on the boat, and the surrounding scenery is less important.
The challenge was to consider what all of this means to the characters. The process has helped me to consider the viewpoint of the characters, who have lived in a world where they are trained in art and see the world differently from say a person that works with boats or has some interaction with them. One might think a boat is an ordinary functional thing. But to these characters it may represent more. The commentary as presented in the Danger of a Single Story, from the lesson, makes one consider the background of the characters—and how foreign something like a boat might be to them. It is complicated to try to get into the mind of a character, but this exercise and material has helped me to consider these things. The characters’ futures are not going to be a world of travel that the boat might represent.
The challenge I have encountered is trying to take these complicated concepts and drill them down into the format required to make the timeline. But the process of doing that has been beneficial because it has forced me to think about and consider things I passed over. I would not have gotten nearly as much from those chapters in the book dealing with the boat without following this process. Learning how to use Timeline JS has helped me to open my mind and consider things that I would not have considered before. A new way of reviewing and trying to understand the material.