comment on structure

Clock Dance is told in four different sections within two distinct parts. The first part shows the reader three moments from Willa’s life by splitting them into three smaller sections set in the year the incident occurred. The first section is set in the year 1967 when Willa is ten-years-old. It follows Willa’s childhood trauma by detailing her mother’s abusive behavior, her father’s reaction to the aggression, and Willa’s own expectations for her future. Section two takes place ten years later in 1977 where Willa falls in love with Derek at college and eventually decides to marry him to spite her mother. The last section of the first part is set twenty years after section to in 1997, where Willa must deal with the loss of her husband Derek as her two, teenage boys begin building lives of their own. These sections are divided so heavily because the author is showing how little Willa experiences in her life. Everything between these moments she lives the same life and does the same things. These moments in her past before Part II are the most important things that shape her future.