Time is the most potent and the most granular force in the universe. It is not static, and can never be found in one space or one time. It is ever present and ever moving. It cannot be surpassed; it cannot be claimed. It is a dream that enchants and terrifies, and that can fade in time or take on new hues. It works in tandem with all that is said and all that is done, and then also abandons them to move forward or backward. It is beyond words and actions, and life, and more powerful.

This book project is unique, and delves into the subject of literary and cinematic women characters entrapped in temporal spaces and their peculiar communication with visibility, enclosure, space and time in the context of sexual and temporal discord. The project is premised on the central tenet that has been posited about the women characters that have been analyzed in the following chapters ‒ women deal with time and temporality differently than men, they share a different dynamic to time than men. Women, this book contends, conceive of temporal passage as a more nuanced and emotional experience than men do. They are able to see both its destructive as well as its constructive character, and negotiate with both much better than men.

The focus of this book lies on the entrapped circumstances of the women characters analyzed in the chapters of this book (entrapped within temporality, that is) and locate their struggles within the realm of the passage of time, and its strict dimensions as well as its fluid ductility. The woman is affected by time in more ways than one, and reacts to it, viscerally, emotionally, psychologically and ontologically, and conceives of it as an ongoing journey that has the potential to empower her like it cannot do for men. The concepts of youth and ageing are gendered, this book argues, and these concepts embody their awareness of themselves differently among the sexes.