How the Past Affects the Future

Throughout The World According to Bob, the author uses his journey towards recovery as a means of exploring the ways in which one’s past might dictate their present and future life. Bowen establishes this particular thematic notion within the opening chapter of his narrative, “The Nightwatchman.” After a day full of trials and frustrations, Bowen is filled with gratitude when his cat companion, Bob, wakes him up on the bus before they can miss their stop. This experience also metaphorically awakens Bowen to the ways in which Bob has helped him grow beyond his difficult past throughout the past two years. The bus anecdote formally initiates a shift into the details of Bowen’s former life: “It was now a little over two years sine I had found Bob, lying injured on the ground floor of this same block of flats” (9). Ever...