This article discusses neoliberal impulses in time-travel romance, examining time-travel stories across different literary cultures. My argument presupposes the assumption that the neoliberal ideology has permeated every aspect of modern life to the extent that love, romance, and the emotional fulfillment granted by romantic relations no longer operate independently from the neoliberal logic that always positions modern subjects as homo economicus. Love and romantic pursuits become an entrepreneurial matter, requiring strategic competition and careful management of risks. Discussing stories about time-travel romance in novels and films through a Marxian lens, I argue that these time-travel stories do not just express a desire for a total escape from the world the characters and the readers inhabit. Rather, they enact fantasies in which a person can easily emerge triumphant in their romantic pursuits and consequently make more pronounced the neoliberal subjectivities of the characters. The emplotments and the trajectories of these stories then indicate ideological capitulation rather than critical resistance to the world the characters try to run away from.
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One rather conspicuous fantasy enacted in time-travel romance is that of an easy conquest in the game of love. As mentioned earlier, modern romance is fraught with elements of competition and investment, be it monetary resources, time, or affects. In time-travel romance, readers frequently find a common trope in which an average person can easily win a highly eligible suitor without having to exert themselves too much. The stories tend to start with protagonists’ feelings of frustration with their lives. Their frustration can be caused by their inability to integrate themselves in the competitive world or sometimes is directly related to their dating prospects. A competition in a new environment where they can easily emerge triumphant then is to a certain extent a fantasy of power. This section will address such a thematic commonality in four time-travel romances to illustrate the kind of capitalistic fantasy at work in the characters’ search for love. Splash Splash Love(2015), a South Korean mini-series, exemplifies how time-travel can bring about an “empowerment” for the young heroine. (3)
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Jude Deveraux’sA Knight in Shining Armor(1989) features similar situations. The idea of romance as a form of investment is explicitly expressed early in the story by Dougless Montgomery, the protagonist. (4)
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One can contend that the stories offer a fantasy where the social ladder can be easily climbed, and desire for romantic success can be realized in an effortless but most productive fashion. Competition exists, but it has been made more conquerable for the protagonists. Another example that can illustrate this idea well is a 2010 Thai novel titledBupphesanniwat(Love Destiny) by Rompaeng. (5)
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Readers who are familiar with Thai novels may notice some similarities between Rompaeng’sBupphesanniwatand Thomyantri’sThawiphop(Two Worlds). After its publication in 1987, the latter has enjoyed widespread and continuing popularity and has been adapted into TV series, films, and musicals several times throughout the past three decade. (5)
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This motif of spiritual connection can also be found inHomklinkwamrak(I Feel You Linger in the Air), a Thai BL story with a time-travel theme. (7)
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Of all the stories discussed in this article, the quagmire faced by Henry DeTamble and his wife, Clare, in Audrey Niffenegger’sThe Time Traveler’s Wife(2005) best instantiates a state of precarity. (8)
Here's the abstract:
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