Ms. Dominico’s Year 12 VCE English Class

‘What people remember shapes their understanding of themselves and their world.’

Statement of explanation
The expository essay “What people remember shapes their understanding of themselves and their world” aims to inform and explain the essence of memory in shaping human experience. It explores memory persistence, its mutability and our dependence on them to negotiate life. It declares man a flawed but enigmatic creature. The intended audience is an educated adult one and the complex vocabulary, while appropriate for such an audience, discusses core ideas clearly and accessibly for even a non-specialist readership. The essay aims for a level of language sophistication that such an audience would expect and appreciate in a serious magazine. In a detached and formal tone the composition draws on “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind”, a parable on the futility of trying to escape the past. It concludes on an unexpected note as the “eternal sunshine’ is rejected as too bland and the central character’s choice to retain his memories are affirmed.

Essay:
In trying to make sense of who we are, we have only our memories of our past to help us to formulate our concept of ourselves as we are now. In a complex interchange our memories are joined to our personalities and help define our identity. Our values and beliefs are also shaped by our memories; either through social interaction or remembering the lessons passed on by significant people in our lives. Memories provide boundaries to our relationships with people in the world around – they govern our behaviour by providing a context to consider our actions.

The cultural and social context that we remember from our childhood often forms the foundation for our adult lives. The memories that we hold over time form reference points for our beliefs, behaviours and fears later in life. The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind evokes this idea as Joel ‘find’ his deep seated childhood memories. These simple memories such as Joel’s feeling of security about being bathed in the sink by his mother or his fear of being left alone can be seen to flow through to his relationships later in life. He is unhappy in his isolated life and ‘falls in love’ with every woman who is nice to him as he searches for security. The desire for security and the fear of being alone are deeply rooted in Joel’s psyche and the film provides the memories that underpin these traits. Our own behaviours are often connected to moments of joy or trauma in our lives and can explain why we respond to stimuli the way we do. This can explain not only our individual actions but also the interactions we have with other people.

Memories provide boundaries to our relationships with people in the world around – they govern our behaviour by providing a context to consider our actions. We learn ‘correct’ behaviours from a very early age – we constantly connect our current interactions with past events to guide us. If a social interaction ends disastrously then we often remember not to make the same mistake again – similarly the more we learn about the people around us the smoother our interactions with them become. We remember what strategies work and apply them to new situations. Patrick’s dastardly distortion of this in using Joel’s memories to build a relationship with Clem is exploiting the ‘memories’ that he is privy to. As an audience we find the ‘hijacking’ of Joel’s memories as obscene because they are such private thing between the former couple. We are glad that Patrick’s decision to usurp Joel with his own memories ultimately fails. Patrick’s actions highlight that our memories are the foundation for developing and sustaining relationships both intimate and also the normal day-to-day interactions in the broader world.

At a fundamental level we understand the world through memories; they shape our ability to grasp our context. Imagine if we experienced everything for the first time – our lives would be a chaotic mess of experiences that we could not possibly process. The ‘reality’ of our world is constructed by our memory. We cannot know objectively what the world is like because we can only know and understand it objectively. The memories that we hold shape our perception of the world around us and allow us to predict how to respond in different situations. Without our memories we would be crippled as human beings unable to interact meaningfully with a world we have to constantly relearn. The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind shows Joel’s grasp on reality slipping through illusory special effects, as he runs from one corner to the other the world continuously recreates itself and he is paralysed – unable to move forward. The fact that we as an audience cannot see a world beyond Joel’s perception is dislocating for us as an audience and the film’s plot becomes an incredibly complex tangle for us to unscramble. Ultimately the film encourages us to accept that life is a complex tangle of relationships and that our memories play an important role in shaping our response to the joys and sorrows that we experience.

The existence of joy is predicated on the existence of sorrow – our memories provide points of reference for our feelings. We know we are happy because we can compare it to moments when we have not been happy. Joel recognises that existence without these states is bland and meaningless. He realises that the erasure of memory ultimately saps the richness out of life; he grasps the fact that our lives cannot be reduced to glossy magazine lifestyle. We are flawed creatures; the complexity of these flaws and their interactions is what makes our lives rich and varied.

Without our memories to guide us we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes – our lives become poorer and lacking direction. The capacity for us to remember both the good and bad and to grow from these memories is critical to us understanding the world and our place within it. Our memories shape our behaviour and help us to be who we are. Simultaneously all of the people around us are constructing and reconstructing their worlds and memories as we interact with them – the result is an incredibly rich and complex society capable of producing superb art, literature and music but also capable of despicable depravity and chaos. We must remember the lessons of history to shape our futures together. The ‘sunshine’ of the spotless mind is ultimately too bland and we support Joel’s decision to reject it for the joys and suffering of a cluttered and complex mind.