Memory: the mental capacity or faculty of retaining and reviving facts, events, impressions, etc., or of recalling or recognizing previous experiences.
It would be difficult to prove that memory is a true, accurate retelling of specific events. Memory is completely personal and is affected by the person remembering. It can be affected by mood, personality, tendencies, biases, etc... Example: I get in a very big fight with a friend while we're on vacation in Greece. We fight the whole time and we don't get to appreciate Greece for it's beauty because we're fighting. Years later I'm asked if I've ever been to Greece. I say nothing about Greece was really that great but I remember feeling tense the whole time.
My memory of it would be completely based on the fight I had with a friend. I wasn't noticing Greece I was noticing the fight and therefor Greece became synonymous with tension and a lack of beauty when in fact it is at polar opposites with that description. Memory conveys a very raw truth in mood and emotion but rarely conveys truth in facts . This is because no one can experience something with an outsiders viewpoint. If you're having the experience you as a person affect what you get out of it and therefore your memory of it.
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3 comments:
I agree with much of what you said. I would also like to put it out there that even if you remember things perfectly accurately, they will have a tendency to change. This is demonstrated through Ursula's memories of Aureliano. Eventhough her memories of him before he leaves for war are fairly accurate, there is no way that she could remember the war beaten man that returns to Macondo to sign the peace treaty as he had never previously existed to her.
I think this is a very interesting point. It is nearly impossible to have an unbiased memory. In 100 Years of Solitude, it is interesting that while there are certain memories that characters receive heretically, there are others that characters forget, such as Aureliano is not able to remember his childhood in Macondo. However, a memory such as Ursula's is biased, just like you suggest. Every time a child is born, Ursula associates the name given to the child with the feelings she has towards the past person with that name. For example, she does not want anyone to be named Ursula, because the memories in her life are sad.
This is an interesting discussion. I think that the next step is to think about how the inherent subjectivity of memory contributes to one´s understanding of history. If no memory is objectively true, how can we believe what the history books tell us. Who writes these things anyhow? Whose voices (subjective memories)are excluded? How are interpretations of history altered and represented in this novel?
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