Spotless Mind

Painful experiences and memories are a part of everyone’s lives. Anyone who has ever been alive can remember a period of distraught and pain. However, while some try to forget the past, others choose to remember it. It is important to remember painful aspects of the past rather than forget them because it makes us stronger and prevents us or others from experiencing the same pain.

Nearly two years after they meet, Joel goes to the library where Clementine works, and he is struck that she doesn’t appear to remember who he is, and she is now dating another guy. A saddened Joel discovers that Clementine had him erased from her mind at Lacuna Inc., a firm people use if they would like a relationship erased from their mind. Grief stricken, Joel in return schedules an appointment to have Clementine erased from his mind. For the procedure Joel must gather any item that refers back to Clementine, such as books, pictures, journals, gifts etc. The procedure works by having the patient focus on the items they bring in, the technicians find the memory in his/her brain and erase it.

The memories also play a dual role as they make the man hopeful yet they also scare him because he is afraid that through remembering things again and again he might taint his memories of the good times forever. “He thought each memory recalled must do some violence to its origins. As in a party game. Say the word and pass it on. So be sparing. What you alter in the remembering has yet a reality, known or not.” (McCarthy 51). The boy although carries on hoping even though all he has are memories of the polluted grey ashes that have always been falling from the sky, the ashes that he was born into. The child has no memories of a past world that held beauty and color and so he relies on his father’s accounts and stories of the past to imagine a world that was anything but the bleakness that he is so accustomed to. But the father, although mostly indulges to the child’s wishes, sometimes cannot bring himself to tell him made up stories of the past because as much as he wants to he cannot remember a lot of it and when he does remember it, it reminds of a world that is no more and that he does not know will ever come back into existence or not. “What would you like? But he stopped making things up because those things were not true either and the telling made him feel bad.” (McCarthy 22). Where at first the child believes the father’s accounts of heroes and stories of courage

As joel rewinds his memory clementine is shown to have orange hair,When Clementine’s hair is orange, she and Joel’s relationship is beginning to fail, Orange is symbolic of deceit ,distrust and danger.

Sometimes we don’t let go of memories, which results into making us bitter and not seeing past the truth: The world does not owe us anything. When the Universe decides to plot a scheme against oneself, one thinks it is the end of life, but the truth is there is always something to live for. Losing a person might be excruciating, but if you keep living on grief memories, it will only be worse. Lingering on things that no longer exist can end a person. Happy moments will fly through them because they’re still lingering on the past. Memories are important, but one has to learn when to let

O’Brien describes that memories can affect one’s emotions in a detrimental way over time. Reflecting on memories that one felt affected them negatively can be bad for the mind and cause them emotional turmoil. O’Brien describes a “hard story to tell (O’Brien 172).” “For more than twenty years,” O’Brien, “had to live with...the shame.” O’Brien had been “trying to push (the memory) away,” The event O’Brien reminisces on

This Lack of Memories is not only about memories, but also what lays beyond elsewhere. Some memories are about elsewhere, and what had happened there in the past that the Elders needed to eliminate to make it a utopian society. The Elders eliminated pain, suffering, color, choices, race, religion, fighting, and most importantly, death and war. With all the memories of the pain, suffering, death, and war, people would be influenced with the bad, and would be tortured. This suffering of the people from the bad memories would lead to a dystopian society. When the past Receiver had failed, the memories that Rosemary (the past Receiver) had received during her training were released to the whole community. “Everyone had access to memories,” the Giver explains and describes the memories being released to their community (104). “It was chaos,” explains the Giver. “They really suffered for a while. Finally it subsided as the memories were assimilated. But it certainly made them aware of how they need a Receiver to contain all that pain,” (104). When the people in the community are introduced to the memories, it proves to everyone that the society needs a Receiver and that they can not handle the pain and

Memory provides a sense of personal identity. Memories that were made from the past create the person that they have become today. It helps to ground judgments and with reasoning. As an illustration, one day a young girl was shopping at the mall with a group of friends and they deiced to steal a cute

Researchers believe that if people hold on to negative feelings, melancholy emotions, and depressing memories it could reshape their brain to where their thoughts can have a damaging effect on their human cells and physical health (Harjee). If people stay attached to these miserable thoughts, they’ll never be able to experience anything remotely uplifting in the future. All they will be able to think about is the horrible mistakes and miserable consequences from their past and never learn from it. An example would be if a teacher made mistakes in the classroom and keeps reminding themselves of the mistake they made. Kevin Goodyear, a teacher who specializes on performance of fine arts said, ““If I let those mistakes govern my life and I constantly dwell on the negative consequences of those mistakes, I cannot improve and I become pessimistic and poor natured” (Goodyear). Hanging on to negative thoughts can destroy in ways people would have never thought were possible. It is like staying in a locked jail cell when having the key to open it in the lock of the door.

Throughout life, people gain and lose memories. The texts “Forgetfulness” by Billy Collins and “Once More to the Lake” by E.B. White both have a theme of memories, and how the past affects the future or present. Both authors use syntax and diction to show the themes. Everybody has memories, like their first birthday party, learning how to ride a bike, or even going to a lake with their family when they were younger. These memories from the past affects the present/future. Some memories that are stronger than others stay with the person and come up later in their life, while some memories just fade away into nothingness. The authors use syntax and diction in the texts “Forgetfulness” and “Once More to the Lake” to show a theme of how past memories affect the present/future.

      Why would anyone want to erase a part of their memory? No one would want to remember being raped or tortured, witness a shocking, scary, or dangerous event. People simply want to forget these memories because they want to stop it hurting and haunting them. Trauma can greatly affect our memory. We may use our natural ability to dissociate to avoid awareness of a traumatic experience while the trauma is happening and however long it may occur. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a condition that develops in some people who have experienced any of events I have mentioned (NIMH). It is normal for us to feel afraid during and after a traumatic situation. Fear is a powerful trigger for the changes in our body to help defend against danger or avoid it. Most people will experience a range of reactions after trauma, yet many will recover from initial symptoms naturally. Those who continue to suffer may have PTSD and they may feel

In Michael Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), the connections between people and memories become the focal point of a very unique romance. Through the use of new technology, the possibility of erasing memories makes painful relationships disappear like they never happened. The tale of Joel and Clementine allows the audience to rethink and question the process they undergo as beneficial or destructive. Though the process might be helpful in eliminating the pain caused from another person, four key scenes show how the lessons learned through relationship experiences are important.

The movie features Joel and Clementine as a couple, and they end up having problems. Clementine takes the extremely very easy consequence but very easy way of moving on from an ex. She went to Lacuna secretly and Joel had no idea about what was going on, the dates, seconds, he was just lost and upset that she moved onto someone else instantly. Joel went to her job and seemed as if she didn’t even know who Joel was or anything literally about him. At her job, her supposed boyfriend who is pretending to be Joel after she erased her memory about him.

When Clementine dyed her hair orange Joel gave her the nickname “Tangerine” which shows intimate emotions, but as the viewer, we see the downfall of the relationship. While Joel is in the process of erasing his memories, the audience can recognize that they are no longer living spontaneously and at the moment but settling down. Clementine brings up serious topics, as a couple should discuss, like having a kid. Yet, Joel persists on “[talking] about it later.” He starts commenting about minute details and things he doesn't like about Clementine, for instance, her drinking. The devaluation relationship comes from a "girl who's looking for [her] own peace of mind", what Joel cannot offer. “Red menace” is a fierce and passionate color. The red represents the brief but joyous and exciting parts of being with Joel. There is a lack of red throughout the movie, but all relationships aren't built upon the happiest moments of a relationship but the memorable and meaningful ones. Lastly, Clementine's hair is green. This signifies a fresh start, a time for growth and balance for

The two main emotional factors that influence memory and forgetting are flashbulb and repression. A flashbulb memory is a memory that has a high emotional significance they are accurate and long lasting. It is almost a photographic memory of a particularly emotional event that is imprinted on your mind. For example an event such as September the 11th, people can remember things such as how they heard it happened, what clothes they were wearing and who they were with very clearly. This is because it was such a sudden emotional impact when they heard it that it got imprinted in their memory. Repression is an emotional factor in forgetting. It is that we forget because we have great anxiety about certain memories. This is because certain