Every person's life is affected by time. In Alice In Wonderland, the white rabbit exhibits the fear that many individuals' experience when dealing with the concept of time. He claims, "I'm late! I'm late... to a very important date. No time to say 'Hello.' Goodbye! I'm late! I'm late! I'm late!" What the rabbit does not realize is that time is not linear. If he does not arrive when he is suppose to, the place will not dissappear and the people will not die. If there is a memory of a person or a place active in another's mind, then that person or place cannot die. The idea of rememory has been presented in many works, such as Beloved by Toni Morrison. It is the knowledge that even if a place no longer exists, it will always be alive in a person's memory. This can be observed with regard to the Holocaust survivors. Those who did survive cannot return to visit the sites of the camps because, when at the location, the event will occur again to that person. It is even hard for the children who have heard their parents' stories to see the sites of the camps because the memories will become alive for them, as well.

Memories are not the only way that time is cyclical instead of linear. If one views history in a cyclical fashion, he or she might make the same observation that the Grandmother make in Ceremony: "It seems like I already heard these stories before... only thing is, the names sound different" (Silko 260). People are born, they die and new ones take their place. Even major events can be found to be similar. For instance, when examining Ceremony, Beloved, and Maus, an individual can find that the Indians are not that unlike the American slaves or the Jews during World War II. Much of their stories are the same. Furthermore, as many of their stories are told through narratives, the stories themselves are not understood in a linear fashion. Anything passed along orally will be told through the memory and the mind, neither or which relate linearly.