1
11/22/63 features Jake Epping, an English teacher that finds out about a "hole" in his friend Al Templeton's restaurant's storage room. Entering the hole sends one back in time to September 9th, 1958. Al uses the hole to try and prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy, but in 1962 he has to return to 2012 because he develops lung cancer. Because Al is too sick, Jake agrees to prevent the shooting by determining whether or not any of the conspiracy theories are true, and stopping Lee Harvey Oswald (if he is the only shooter) from completing the assassination.
Using time travel to change the past reminds me of 1984's staying-in-power motto of "He who controls the past controls the future", and can fairly easily be thought of as a selfish thing. Had the assassination not affected Jake or Al, I doubt either one of them would have wanted to prevent it. While Jake is in the past, he finds out that "The past is obdurate... It doesn't want to be changed."(King, 232). Jake acknowledges that what he is doing is opposed by time itself, yet he still wishes to spend five years in a strange place in hopes that his quality of life will be increased in the present. While I do not condone the use of time travel for the good of humanity, I think there are quite a few situations in which the past should be left alone.
2
"I have never been what you'd call a crying man. My ex-wife said that my "nonexistent emotional gradient" was the main reason she was leaving me (as if the guy she met in her AA meetings was beside the point)"(King, 1). Jake Epping is a character that is fairly emotionally stable compared to most people, and it causes problems while preventing other problems in the book. I have been told that Epping and I are similar emotionally, both positively and negatively. It can be an advantage to not become emotional about most things, allowing for the ability to calmly address a situation, but it can also be detrimental. Having a "nonexistent emotional gradient" means that one tends to not become inspired to do things, and could result in missed opportunities. Unlike Epping, however, I'm not sure if I would go back in time to prevent the shooting of JFK. I would be skeptical of the way that the time travel changes work, and am hesitant to spend five years in a world of racism and cigarette smoke to prevent a shooting that could very well mean I affect the world negatively. If JFK was going to do something that caused Russia and Cuba to launch their bombs, then the assassination would have been for the betterment of humanity and should be left alone.
