Time, Death, and God: An Epiphany

"He held out his right hand in the moonlight. From the cut on his wrist the blood was still oozing. Every few seconds a drop fell, dark, almost colourless in the dead light. Drop, drop, drop. To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow.... He had discovered Time and Death and God." -pg 136

When John tried to go participate in an adult right of passage, the savages push him away and throw rocks at him until he leaves. The repeated rejection of the people he understands best in the world pushes John to the point of extreme pain, even suicidal thoughts. These emotions bring John onto an epiphany. This epiphany serves as a defining moment for John. The realizations he comes to during this passage form him into a more adult and unique character different in belief from both worlds he knows of.

Time, Death, and God are three concepts that are viewed oddly from both the modern world of the novel and the old world of the Reservation. Time is viewed on the Reservation as an unchangeable and eroding force of nature. The members of the savage society life to an old, incapacitated age in poverty and filth. Time is their enemy. Time in the modern world outside Malpais is a defeated force. The use of soma allows characters to fight time and escape for infinite amounts of time. They are also conditioned to never fear death; they cannot feel the clock running out on their lives. Similarly, death holds power over the savages, but not over the conditioned fearless of the modern society. God is a mixture of Jesus and odd spirits on the reservation. God is replaced by the hero Ford in the modern society. John finds his own way in all three aspects. His epiphany allows him to feel neither the crushing nor its absence. He neither accepts the god mixture of the Indians or the  Ford of Linda's life. John can reach his life's end without the use of soma or the filth of the savage life. John's epiphany makes him his own, unique character.