In Tinkers, clocks are everywhere. George fixes clocks and fills his house and workshop with clocks in various stages of disrepair. These clocks are a symbol for Death, Mortality, and the Passage of Time, and they also represent the circular nature of life and the ways in which memories can be kept alive. An excerpt from The Reasonable Horologist states that the purpose of a clock “is to return the hands back to that time, a time which, from the moment chosen, the hands leave and skate across the rest of the clock’s painted signs” (189). In this way, a clock represents life as a person’s journey from birth to death, or from unbeing to unbeing. They experience life as they travel back to their starting point.

George associates clocks with his own mortality, believing that their winding down reflects his own; when they stop ticking, he panics, believing that his own heart will stop ticking. Essentially, the clocks represent the passage of time and the inevitability of death. However, they have the ability to be rewound and instilled with new life, and in this way, they represent The Power of Memory to bring back past moments.