Fiction vs. Memory

CECILY

I keep a diary in order to enter the wonderful secrets of my life. If I didn't write them down, I should probably forget all about them.

MISS PRISM

Memory, my dear Cecily, is the diary that we all carry about with us.

CECILY

Yes, but it usually chronicles the things that have never happened, and couldn't possibly have happened. 

(The Importance of Being Earnest)

          When I first read through “Company” I did not quite know how I wanted to interpret the events. My immediate thought was that the character in the piece was retelling his memories on his deathbed. However, the more I looked at it, the more I thought about the possibilities of it being completely different. For example, it could also be a man creating stories to amuse himself while falling asleep. Then I realized that maybe my second idea was not as completely different of an idea as I originally thought. This is because I went on to think about what I know of memories from psychology.

          The mind is a wonderful, but confusing thing. Many people believe that our memories are highly accurate (McLeod). This is why juries in court often heavily weight eyewitness testimonies. However, our memory is not really as accurate is many might think. In fact, we tend to manufacture elements of our memories all the time to make sense of them. The way human memory works is that we tend to remember the main idea of something that happened rather than a play by play. We then take this idea and shape it so that it fits with ideas that we already recognize and understand (McLeod).

          After reading up on this phenomenon, I was reminded that fiction and memory are not two entirely exclusive things. In a way all memory is fiction, because it is an individual’s own interpretation of how an event occurred. If the same event were recalled in another individual’s memory, it may have minor differences, or it may have major differences from how the first individual remembered it. It all depends on how that person perceived the event.

McLeod, S. A. (2009). Eyewitness Testimony. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/eyewitness-testimony.html

Introduction and Reflection on "What Would I Do"

"No symbols where none intended" -Samuel Beckett

          I chose this quote as the title for this blog, because it is one of my favorite Beckett quotes. Samuel Beckett was a very intelligent man, and one of my favorite things to do while reading Beckett is to try and find the humor hidden in what appears to be a depressing piece.

          The name included in the URL is also a quote from Beckett. I chose it from one of the poems we looked at yesterday called "What Would I Do". I found "What Would I Do" particularly interesting due to the change in attitude that takes place quite suddenly near the end of the poem. Beckett begins this poem by talking about the world. It is not a particularly cheery outlook on life, but it is a realistic way of looking at the world. He emphasizes the fact that life is temporary, and death is inevitable. He asks, “What would I do without this world Faceless incurious where to be lasts but an instant…” While the expected answer would be “nothing,” Beckett takes a different route. His answer is, “What I did yesterday and the day before.”

          What I get from this poem is that life goes on. Human nature is unchanging, and we are all just small parts of a larger entity. While small details may change, it really does not matter in the grand scheme of things.

          The whole piece has a haunting tone. It is not a piece that makes you jump for joy to say the least. However, it is beautiful and hard to forget.