Time, history, and temporality are crucial to contemporary narratives as the past and future are often intertwined, and historical events are necessary to inform events and behaviors as life moves on. In The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin and A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, female protagonists are used to show the passage of time as the narrative does not follow any sort of chronological order. However, even as the women are used to show the connection of events regardless of time, the two books differ in their uses of the characters. While Sasha in A Visit From the Goon Squad stays static over the course of the novel in order to symbolize the progression of time, The Fifth Season’s Essun changes drastically in order to show how time has changed.

Both novels have a varied and unique timeline, as the books do not follow a typical novel format of an ongoing story told from one perspective. The narration style switches each chapter, going from first- person narration to third-person, and sometimes even second-person in the case of Essun. Because of this structure, it is difficult initially to place oneself as a reader in the correct time, and other elements of the text are needed to understand the narrative, unlike what most readers are accustomed to in traditional novels. Both Egan and Jemisin chose to utilize a character as an anchoring element in order to show what other characters, events, and places were relevant to the plot at specific times. 

Egan starts off A Visit From The Goon Squad with a chapter about Sasha narrated in third-person omniscient, where Sasha is on a date and steals a wallet from a woman’s purse in the bathroom of the restaurant. Here, it is made clear that Sasha is a kleptomaniac, collecting items she had stolen from people specifically, a problem that had recently “accelerated”(4), suggesting that it has been happening to at least some degree for a while. It is acknowledged that Sasha’s age is ambiguous early on, as she is thirty-five, but not even her therapist knows her real age; she notes that “the closest anyone had come to guessing it was thirty-one, and most put her in her twenties. She worked out daily and avoided the sun. Her online profiles all listed her as twenty-eight” (6). Sasha’s agelessness is indicative of her consistency as a character. She remains the same and has a timelessness about her that lasts the entirety of the book.

Sasha makes an appearance in the consecutive chapter, which follows the struggles of her boss, music producer Bennie Salazar. They are going to meet an old act Bennie represents, and upon arrival, “he found Sasha waiting at the door; she’d caught the train at Grand Central after [he had] called and had somehow beaten him there”(27). This, like other things about her, mystifies Sasha, and Bennie goes on to describe her as having “high cheekbones and narrow green eyes, wavy hair that ranged from reddish to purplish, depending on the month. Today it was red”(27). As he looks at her, he realizes how much time has passed since he hired her when she was a student at NYU, and he questions why she is not married or doesn’t have kids as she must be in her thirties by now, thinking “She seemed suddenly older, or was it that Bennie seldom looked directly at her face?”(28). Sasha is a constant in the lives of those around her, never changing enough for anyone to notice. Later, Bennie tries to avoid an awkward moment, then reminds himself that “Sasha knew better, she knew everything”(36). She is painted as this ageless and almost omniscient god-like character, around whom time revolves.

The next few chapters move in and out of time; starting with Bennie as a highschooler, moving to a story about a music producer named Lou and his family trip to Africa, mentioned in the previous chapter so readers know it occurred before Bennie met Lou. The next is Lou dying, presumably far into the future, at a point when Sasha would’ve been involved in Bennie’s life, before cutting to a scene in Bennie’s office. Sasha is there working the desk, described as “reddish hair, green eyes, flower petal mouth”(95), as she is described throughout the book. Bennie, although divorced in chapter two, is happily married and has just had a baby, and Sasha is there through it all. 

Events occur in the next few chapters that Sasha doesn’t appear in, although she is connected to them by a degree through her relationship with Bennie. She resurfaces in chapter ten, written in the second-person perspective of her friend Rob, who readers had heard of in chapter one, after her date comes home with her and sees her collection, pausing to look at a picture of “Rob, Sasha’s friend who had drowned in college”(14). This places readers in the past, while Sasha is at college, and Rob mentions repeatedly his close relationship with her: “something only Sasha knows about [him]”(190). Her backstory is revealed in this chapter, as she had only told Rob that she’d run away with a drummer in high school, ending up in Europe and Asia traveling alone, leaving her as a twenty-one year old college freshman(192). Her age, again, is something of a question, as she is older than she should be for the time in her life she is at. She tells Rob her big secret the first time they meet, years before chapter ten takes place, telling him “she’d started shoplifting with her girlfriends at thirteen”(194), proving that this is a part of her that stays consistent throughout the book. It is also revealed that the night Rob drowns is the night Sasha meets Bennie at a party, showing how connected everything truly is regardless of a chronological order.

The book then cuts to a relevant scene in chapter eleven, sequential as it hops into Sasha’s time abroad. Her uncle is searching for her in Naples, chronologically this would have taken place before the events of the last chapter, but Egan decides it is most relevant here. This is the only part of the novel where Sasha is less herself, and is “lost”(214). Her uncle notes that “her hair was not nearly as red as it had been”(216), and she seems tired and strung out, but still as wily as ever. Yet, in the last line of the chapter, Egan cuts to twenty years in the future, as her uncle will see “the western sun blaze” through a window in her family home, and will be reminded of Sasha when he found her in Italy, when “her hair and face were aflame with orange light”(233). This creates a parallelism between Sasha in Naples, and Sasha as a mother years and years in the future, where she remains the same. 

The book ends, full circle, with Sasha in the focus. Alex, the man she went on a date with in chapter one, is living far in the future with a wife and children. He is networking with Bennie for a job as technology replaces everything around them, and is struck by the memory of the girl he dated who once used to work for Bennie. Her name eludes him, until he recalls Sasha and “she seemed to wink at him (green eyes?) and slip away” (325). Her mysterious and playful nature is still very much intact, although he can’t remember much else about her. Alex places her in the past, seemingly farther than it should be, but far back relative to the new technology and changing times of the future. The last passage in the book shows Alex and Bennie, looking for Sasha at her old apartment, in order to go back to a far more simple time, that they cannot return to without her (340).

Although this use of a character as an anchor for the sequential rather than consecutive passage of time occurs in N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season, as well, the female protagonist separates time through the shifts in her identity, rather than the consistency of it. The novel starts off with a prologue with an introduction to the time it takes place: “Let’s start with the end of the world, why don’t we?”(1). The story takes place on an earth that is not the earth readers know, suggesting a difference in the way time must be perceived. It then introduces Essun, a forty-two year old woman whose son has just died. Then as the first chapter starts, the reader is told, “You are she. She is you. You are Essun”(15). This immediately causes some disruption of temporality as it places the reader directly into the story. 

Readers learn more about Essun as the story progresses. She is an orogene, a being who can harness immense power from the earth and use it to help others or create destruction. They are a minority on the continent, and they are hated by all others, treated as second-class citizens despite their abilities. The narrative switches abruptly in chapter two, a third person perspective on the story of Damaya, a young girl who is being taken from her home because she is an orogene. She is naive, and scared, and when the man who has come to take her introduces himself, she “trusts him immediately. She knows she shouldn’t, but she does”(30). Damaya is portrayed as innocent and unknowing of the world, relying on the man, her new Guardian, Schaffa, to inform her of what she should and should not know and do.

Chapter three cuts back to Essun, where readers are again directed to think of her as themselves. Her life is presumably unfolding at the same time as Damaya’s, as much of the world around them has similar social structures and attitudes about orogenes. She is grieving over the death of her son, and angry at her husband who killed him, and has “to stop in the doorway of [her] home, bracing [her] hand against the door frame and sucking in deep breaths so [she doesn’t] start screaming or perhaps stabbing someone ([herself?]) with the damn skinning knife”(45). Although we know little about Essun at this point, she is depicted as exhausted at the world and her own life, as well as desperate to find what is left of her family. She is aware of the danger that surrounds her because she is an orogene, acknowledging that although she is safe at the moment, “that can change quickly”(47), and she cannot relax. Essun is someone who has lived long enough and seen things to become cynical and hard, only living now for survival. Readers know, though, that she has a mysterious past, shown when she begins to use her powers and a voice from her subconscious chides her, but she forgets it as it happens, saying the voice “is from another life”(56).

Yet another character is introduced in chapter four: Syenite, an junior orogene who has gone through official training at the Fulcrum. She is on an assignment with an advanced orogene named Alabaster to help fix a coral reef in a neighboring region. Syenite is career-driven and confident in her abilities, but often emphasizes her lack of freedom in her life, never having a “choice”(67) in any matter. Again, this seems to be occurring at the same time as Essun and Damaya, as the world around them is seemingly the exact same, just in different areas of the continent. She’s focused on how best to survive as an orogene in the system that exists, knowing that even though she doesn’t want to complete her job responsibilities of having a child, she must because “this is what it means to be civilized-doing what her betters say she should, for the ostensible good of all”(75). She is willing to go against her better judgment in order to succeed.

These three characters are living very different and separate adventures for much of the novel. Damaya is a young orogene in training, called a grit, “an unimportant bit of rock, ready to be polished into usefulness, or at least to help grind other, better rocks”(191), living at the Fulcrum. She is learning the ways of the Fulcrum, and is working to not suffer the harsh consequences of acting out of turn. However, there are some hints to a time in the future throughout these descriptions, as it is mentioned that “it will be years before Damaya understands that when the instructors kill an errant student, it is meant not as a goad, but as a mercy”(197). Here, Jemisin is hinting towards some cynicism that, although Damaya does not possess yet, she will develop at some point later in time after witnessing the abuse and lies of both the Guardians and the Fulcrum.

Syenite is learning more about the system that she is a part of, as she continues on her mission with Alabaster. Her independent and strong-willed nature is beginning to show, as she presents herself with authority rather than submission to leaders in other regions, saying to one leader, “You would expect to be treated like a skilled expert who’s been learning her craft since childhood. Like someone who plies an important and difficult trade, and who’s come to perform a task that dictates your comm’s livelihood”(215). She is standing up against the oppression orogenes face, and realizing her own power in the process.Syenite ends up on the run from the Fulcrum guardians, sticking with Alabaster and ending up on an island off the continent, where she learns the power and greatness of orogenes like herself.

Essun is traveling in an area that’s recovering from a major earthquake, in partnership with a commless woman named Tonkee, and a strange little boy named Hoa. It appears to be the end of the world, as the three traipse through what seems to be a post apocalyptic world. There is ash falling from the sky, other refugees passing them on the road, heading north. Essun acknowledges this tragedy but reminds herself: “Doesn’t matter, though. You’re not going north. And no matter how much it bothers you- what’s happened, what it means- you know better than to dwell too much on it. Your head’s crowded enough with ugly memories”(238). Essun has given up on everything not connected to finding her daughter, very defeated and very unlike the eager characteristics of Syenite and Damaya. 

It is not until three hundred and thirty pages into the novel that it is revealed that Damaya is Syenite, and Syenite is Damaya. This shifts readers' understanding of the two immediately, forcing them to reconcile all they know about each very distinct character into one with the other’s past. This switches up the timeline completely, as Syenite’s story must now be viewed in the future, and Damaya’s time as years ago from Syenite’s perspective. By chapter twenty, time is moving much faster. Syenite notes that it has been two years since she had her baby with Alabaster(362), which would be three years since the end of chapter nineteen. And finally, it is revealed that Essun is Syenite who is Damaya, and Damay grows into Syenite who grows into Essun, in chapter twenty one when Essun recognizes a woman from Damaya’s narrative. At this point, readers realize that the stories have all been intertwined for the entirety of the novel, which completely transforms all ideas of time and temporality: although we knew it was not a consecutively chronological book, there was some logical progression that readers would assume was different storylines occurring at the the same time. The three characters are so varied and distinct, it’s almost impossible that they are the same person. Unless, the world changed so much as time passed that they needed to adapt to survive as time moved along. 

Both Egan and Jemisin utilize their female protagonists to help with their complex, and often conflicting, ways of representing time. Sasha is someone who represents time to those around her, as she is so constant in so many lives, that it is difficult to pay attention to temporality, as she makes it seem as though no time has passed. Yet, while Egan focuses heavily on the consistency and stability of her one character, Sasha, a never changing figure who represents the connectedness and fluidity of time, where each event can be drawn back to another, or could be happening simultaneously, Jemisin takes a different approach. Her character, although one person, takes on the role of three contrasting characters, so different it seems impossible for them to exist as one. This interpretation shows time differently, as time passage is marked by the distinct changes that occur to Damaya, then Syenite, then Essun, as they must completely change themselves in order to adapt to changing times. Jemisin still focuses on the connectivity of time, yet her distinctions make it clear that time is passing and the world is changing drastically with each chapter of life.