Every single event that happens in our life becomes a memory later on, some of which we remember and some of which we do not. Every one of those memories impacts who we are and who we become as a person: they shape our identities. It is important to realize that concept when we are living in a globalized world when we are interacting with people of different background. Acknowledging that fact help us find common grounds and do not pay attention to the details of our differences as much. In this paper, it is shown that past memories shape one’s identity and the reader can see that through the character of Ashima in The Namesake, written by Jhumpa Lahiri and Humera Afridi in the article “A Gentle Madness.” Keeping those memories is fine …show more content…
The fact that the memory is “visceral” and “muscular” signals that it is always going to stay with her and as she also suggest elsewhere in the article, it will shape how she acts; therefore, it would become an important part of her identity. It is because of that memory that she says people of Pakistan, herself included, always seek to find a way out and are scared. It has clearly become a part of her identity. Afridi’s memory is a negative memory, whereas Ashima’ memory is a positive one, which shows that all of our memories, either positive or negative, can affect us and shape our identity.
Ashima in the Namesake also shows the influence of past experiences on one’s identity construction. She represents that fact that past experiences shape who a person is, but this time it is shown through daily actions in the Namesake, whereas in Afridi’s “Gentle Madness”, it is described indirectly. Ashima shows, throughout her daily actions, how one’s origin, shapes his or her identity. She wears “sari” (Lahiri 2), which shows her ties to her hometown. Outfits of each character are a part of his or her characteristic and show a part of his or her identity. Ashima shows her ties to India and the fact that it is a part of her identity by wearing what she wears. The food is also a representative of one’s culture and thus the identity in this case. When Ashima tries to cook an Indian food in America, she says, “there’s something missing” (Lahiri 1). The fact that a part of
“They wept together, for the things they now knew.”(104) The last sentence of the first story in Interpreter of Maladies, reveals the cruelty of the elapsed romance in a marriage. In the two collections, A Temporary Matter and The Third and Final Continent, Jhumpa Lahiri demonstrates that a marriage can be either uplifting or discouraging depends on the mindset held by the couple and the strength of human bonding. Lahiri emphasizes the significance of mindset and human bondings through the ending of the two stories. The endings of the two stories are polar opposite : In A Temporary Matter, Shukumar and Shobha weeps for the termination of their relationship; The Third and Final Continent, by contrast, the protagonist(MIT) enjoys a fairytale-like
Memory is a powerful concept. Often when an individual undergoes a traumatic situation, the ramifications of these actions seep into an individualfs psyche unknowingly. In effect this passes through memory and becomes sub-consciously buried within a personfs behavioural patterns generally. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink explores the concept of a young mans subconscious desire for a woman whom he gcanft remember to forgeth (1Memento) as she is so deeply inlaid within his soul.
Memories are important, they are a personal record of our past experiences, and could be called the history book for our life. In the poem "The Heroes You Had as a Girl", author Bronwen Wallace tells the story of a woman who meets her high school hero later in her life, reflects on her memories of him, and ultimately decides not to talk to him. The effect that this topic has on everyone is the knowledge that we can be captivated and let our memories control us, and by knowing that our memories hold that much power, it may make it more mentally efficient to make accurate, and personal decisions in a fraction of the time. The topic and overall meaning that this idea holds convey a message that resonates with the idea that memories are in fact the central hub of our decision making. People remembering memories can affect their perspective on their lives to such an extent, that they prefer to immerse their mind in their past memories rather than the current reality.
Many memories for young children involve a special individual who made specific events during their childhood, vividly stand out to them as adults. In “Tender Stranger” written by Phillip Lopate, a memory is told from the perspective of a young boy. He is on his way to school when he suddenly bumps into a lawyer on the street corner. In “Novella” written by Robert Hass, the memory is from a young girl who develops a friendship with an elderly gentleman who lives in a cabin deep in the woods. The young boy meets the lawyer on the busy sidewalk and never sees him again, while the young girl forms an extensive friendship as she and the elderly man visit often. The vivid childhood memories of these two relationships play a significant role in the character’s life, whether it was a short encounter or a long lasting friendship.
Thesis: Identity is constructed through the character’s change/realisation of social ideals and personal experiences throughout the text.
Lest we forget” Baker’s attitude leads his mother to question, “Does history remember more than memory?” Here, rhetorical questioning indicates the way in which private memories are often abandoned in favour of public representations of historical events. The public representation of the Indigenous history is the one written from the European perspective, whilst the private memories, from the Indigenous perspective, similarly to Genia’s, are often forgotten or not validated. However, Baker soon comes to realise that these memories of his mother are just as valuable, if not more, than those of his father. He acknowledges that; “Unlike my father, she could never show her children the scars on her arm; hers were invisible, numbered in the days and years of her stolen childhood”. Through metaphysical imagery, Baker, and ultimately the audience, recognise the eloquence and value of Genia’s memories in shaping a voice and persona that, although equally valid to those of other survivors, has not been publicly recognised.
An analogy has been drawn about how she was in the past and how is she now. She was a carefree person, demanding love in her life, wanting to take care of her children and become a house wife and now she works as a schoolteacher, has become a responsible person concerned about her husband and child, struggling for her son’s life, bearing tantrums of her sister-in-law and living in a small house in a small city. On the other hand, Komal, sister-in-law of Anjali is a character shown who seems to be frustrated from her life from the time she has lost her husband. The book has depicted another face of an Indian woman, who lives her entire life following the customs that the society has decided for a widow. Anjali tried to make her first marriage successful by taking care of small things like making her husband, his favorite cardamom chai and best of meals while Prakash’s second wife Indu was never concerned about any of his likings and gave priority to her own personal
Memories can in a way define who we are and how we progress through life. Memories can be a pathway to either follow the straight and narrow or to have us decide which fork of the road to take. Past memories can help to identify a person and can effect the future that follows. Through the journy of self discovery, Marshall’s Praisesong for the Widow and Danticat’s Breath, Eyes, Memory suggest one must relive past and present memories to find their true identity in the future.
The plot in the short story “Hindus” demonstrates how a certain sequence of events can help people better understand themselves. Leela meets many different and unique people on her journey throughout
For instance, by using the relationship between the past and present to influence Amir’s character development, Hosseini demonstrates how despite one’s best efforts, there is no way to escape the memories of the past. Memories follow individuals wherever they go and can torment individuals for the rest of their lives. Hosseini reveals how Amir’s past decisions shape his character development and his decisionmaking as the story progresses. When Amir was young, he was
Memories are works of fiction, selective representations of experiences actual or imagined. They provide a framework for creating meaning in one's own life as well as in the lives of others. In Toni Morrison's novel Beloved, memory is a dangerous and debilitating faculty of human consciousness. Sethe endures the tyranny of the self imposed prison of memory. She expresses an insatiable obsession with her memories, with the past. Sethe is compelled to explore and explain an overwhelming sense of yearning, longing, thirst for something beyond herself, her daughter, her Beloved. Though Beloved becomes a physical manifestation of these memories, her will is essentially defined by and tied to the
Memory – what it is, how it works, and how it might be manipulated – has long been a subject of curious fascination. Remembering, the mind-boggling ability in which the human brain can conjure up very specific, very lucid, long-gone episodes from any given point on the timeline of our lives, is an astounding feat. Yet, along with our brain’s ability of remembrance comes also the concept of forgetting: interruptions of memory or “an inability of consciousness to make present to itself what it wants” (Honold, 1994, p. 2). There is a very close relationship between remembering and forgetting; in fact, the two come hand-in-hand. A close reading of Joshua Foer’s essay, “The End of Remembering”, and Susan Griffin’s piece, “Our Secret”, directs us
Certainly, the characters in Murakami’s novel do a lot of damage to one another. Murakami explores how this damage expands and infects others and how it affects the characters for years to come. Several scholars have examined how Murakami presents the events of his novel. Specifically that he confusingly creates a nonlinear narrative. This authentically mimics the nature of memory, which is often colored with bias and strewn together. In his article for the Journal of Analytic Psychology, Kawai contends that the concept of reality only exists in the past because that is the only way it can be viewed. Tsukuru’s reality exists not in his present moment but in his memories. My paper will extend various arguments on Murakami’s depiction of dreams, reality, memory, and history to explore the greater ethical questions that Murakami introduces to his readers. Just as Tsukuru cannot remain within his singular reality, Murakami’s ethical ponderings extend out of the world of his novel and into our
In everyone’s life there is a moment that is so dreadful and horrific that it is best to try to push it further and further back into your mind. When traumatized by death for example it is very natural to shut off the memory in order to self-defense suppresses the awful emotional experience. Very often it is thoughtful that this neglecting and abandoning is the best way to forget. In Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, memory is depicted as a dangerous and deliberating faculty of human consciousness. In this novel Sethe endures the oppression of self imposed prison of memory by revising the past and death of her daughter Beloved, her mother and Baby Suggs. In Louise Erdrich’s
“An Unknown Girl” by Moniza Alvi is a free verse poem about the author’s experience getting her hand hennaed in an Indian bazaar. Throughout the poem, Alvi makes use of structure techniques like end-stopped lines, occasional rhymes, language, imagery, and changes in tone to explore different aspects of the concept of identity.