How Memories Impact the Future

 I really enjoyed reading the excerpts from Becoming and Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? These two excerpts are the authors’ reflections on their personal memories. In the excerpt we read from Becoming, Michelle Obama is reflecting on a short period of time when she is attending Princeton. She admits that her memories may not be 100% accurate and some of the details she is sharing are fuzzy; however, she dives into how these specific memories made her feel. Her descriptions feel raw and honest and she is sharing how these small moments changed her life. She analyzes the people around her (specifically a college boyfriend) and herself and realizes how these judgements and realizations impacted where she is today and the person she became. In Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? Jeanette Winterson focuses on her childhood and her relationship with her mother. Her descriptions of these memories are extremely detailed and read as if there is no doubt in her mind that the events happened exactly as she describes them. I am not saying they did not happen exactly as she describes; however, Winterson is talking about her childhood (trauma) and how that affected her relationship with her mother and how she turned out as an adult. I think trauma can sometimes shape the way we look back on our memories. She keeps going back to this idea that “the Devil led us to the wrong crib” which is something her mother would tell her. Her repetition and creative writing style make it easy to want to read more about something that is so full of hurt and emotion. I think that this quote from The Art of Memoir is the perfect description of how both Obama and Winterson describe their memories:

“Memory is a pinball in a machine — it messily ricochets around between image, idea, fragments of scenes, stories you've heard. Then the machine goes tilt and snaps off. But most of the time, we keep memories packed away. I sometimes liken that moment of sudden unpacking to circus clowns pouring out of a miniature car trunk — how did so much fit into such a small space?”

I think that Obama is more forthcoming in some instances that she is unsure of the true sequence of events, especially during the scene she is describing leading up to running through the field. I do not think Winterson ever knowingly lied in her memoir, she just didn’t admit if anything was hard to remember for her, and maybe because it was more trauma based, her recollection is very clear.