Types of Memory - Post Conflict

Memory. Memory comes to play a very important role in our lives. Many may say that memory is what shapes us into who we become as a person since we learn or don’t learn from our own or others experiences, but memory can be a little tricky. Most times, especially after a conflict, memory can be used to tell us what happened. This type of memory is called historical memory, although it can be helpful in finding out what might have happened during the conflict, memory is not always 100% accurate. I like to look at memory as if it were play-doh, because it can take on any shape and can be mixed with many other colors, in-fact some may say that memory is very malleable. Just like how each container of play-doh is different from the next one, so is memory. Even though play-doh may undergo similar stresses, that doesn’t always mean that the play-doh will come out to be the same. This example of memory can be seen through the works of Hannah Arendt, Waltz with Bashir, and Death and the Maiden as the main characters experience remembering their memories in different ways after a conflict. A type of recollection might be in the form of suppressing memories, flashbacks, or even holding onto the memory and keeping it in the forefront. In fact each of the works I mentioned above has one of these forms of memory. So let’s start at the back and make our way forward starting with suppressed memories.

In Waltz with Bashir the main character, Ari Folman, meets up with one of his army friends named Boaz. Boaz was telling Ari of the recurring dream he has been having relating to the time that they were in Lebanon and asks Ari if he has had similar occurrences. Ari says that he hasn’t, in fact he says that he cannot recall anything from that particular moment. Ari goes home wondering why he can’t recall some of the wars events. Later that night he has his first dream of the war which leaves him confused as to if what he dreamed really happened. Ari goes to visit his childhood friend Ori, who happens to be a psychologist, with questions about the dream. Ori tells him that this dream might just be a case of false memory and gives Ari an example. But Ari is still not sure, so Ori tells Ari that to find his answers Ari

needs to go in search for them, thus leading Ari on a journey. A journey to go visit friends that were in the war and ask them if they remember their time there and if he was with them in attempt to find his missing memories. In this example we can see that Ari’s conflict, the Lebanon War, was so traumatic to him that he ended up burying his memories deep down in attempt to forget what happened.

Hannah Arendt is a little different. In Hannah’s story she accepted the conflict that happened in the past and was living as normally as she could. Hannah grew up in Germany as a Jew. When Hitler came to power she and her family were in danger. She ended up in Gurs, a detention center, for a while but was able to escape and made her way to America where she became a teacher and a well known writer. In 1960 another one of Hannah’s journeys began. She went to Jerusalem to hear and write for The New Yorker about the Eichmann Trial. There she started to think in a different way and began to see things in a different lighting. She starts having flashbacks to when she was going to school and asked her professor how to think. Her article once published got many reviews, mostly reviews from angry people wondering why she would support Eichmann. Hannah Arendt opened up memories for many people who heard about Eichmann and or had escaped from the treacheries of World War II, but along the way also opened up memories herself, but as an audience we don’t see all of those memories. Hannah Arendt’s example of memory as flashbacks are common, but more so with those with PTSD.

My last example is from Death and the Maiden. The main character Paulina remembers the events from the conflict which left her anxious, worried about strangers, and a dislike for the Schubert song. Paulina was raped some years before and tends to bring in her situation and how Gerardo, her husband, didn’t look for her into their conversations. One evening Gerardo gets a lift home from Dr. Roberto Miranda who gets into a sticky situation because Paulina claims that he was her perpetrator. She keeps Roberto tied up and tries to get him to confess that he was the one that hurt her many years before because his voice, skin, and smell are the same. She keeps the reigns in her hands with a gun and makes her husband act as a judge for the confession even though Gerardo believes that she is mistaken in her accusations, but Paulina holds strong with her belief. The structure of the play Death and the Maiden allows it so that the audience gets to believe what they would like to think is true, whether or not Roberto is just an unlucky guy who reminds Paulina of her perpetrator or if Paulina was correct. Either way the play also leaves room for questioning of Paulina’s own personal memories and that they might not be as accurate as they used to be. We tend to “forget or misremember details and incorporate information we've only learned afterward into our memory of the original event” (PsychologyToday). An example would be when Paulina is looking for clarification from Gerardo as to how many times she was raped.

These are only three types of memory out of many. For a better understanding to the different types of memory I mentioned and decided to work with, hover over the dots that I placed on the picture above. Pictures can be interpreted in various ways, for me this picture depicts an underlying truth about our mind, more specifically our memory. The dots on the picture will give you a brief background on how I related Hannah Arendt, Waltz with Bashir, and Death and the Maiden, and the switch to the different types of memory.

I do think it is interesting to note how similar Hannah Arendt, Waltz with Bashir, and Death and the Maiden are; beyond just the fact that each main character went through a conflict. I took the words from both

movies and the play and put them into a word cloud to see what words would be the most common. Of course some of the main words related exactly to that particular film or play, but what I thought was cool was the three themes the words showed from all works. Know, think, and tell. These three words were consistent and they happen to relate to memory. For you need to think about the event to know what happened to be able to tell others about it.

Like I said above, memory is tricky. How it will work is completely unique for each individual. It could be affected in the sense that an individual will completely lose all memories of that event like in Waltz with Bashir, it might come back in flashbacks after a certain event or events occur like in Hannah Arendt, and memory might even stay with the victim but slowly deteriorate so that the actual facts are slightly distorted like in Death and the Maiden.

Although we may not be a complete Dory, who tends to forget things

she has learned or experienced 'almost instantly', we still need to remember that our memory is like play-doh. It is not going to be 100% reliable as much as we would like it to be. Memory is malleable and subject to change. The more colors we add to it the higher the chance a memory we held will be modified to fit the new information we have gained. But eventually over time the play-doh will start to dry out, causing cracks to appear, and chipping to occur around the the edges. Memory may not always be efficient, but like a famous fish once said "just keep swimming".

Sources

Carlos Mejia and Sean Easton - Post Conflict Professors

Google Images - Hannah Arendt

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/2014-08_Graffiti_Patrik_Wolters_alias_BeneR1_im_Team_mit_Kevin_Lasner_alias_koarts,_Hannah_Arendt_Niemand_hat_das_Recht_zu_gehorchen,_Geburtshaus_Lindener_Marktplatz_2_Ecke_Falkenstraße_in_Hannover-Linden-Mitte.jpg

Google Images -Memory

http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/pictures/20000/nahled/in-memory-for.jpg

Google Images - Waltz with Bashir

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_M5CxIdbNdyk/SXXL-9RtzVI/AAAAAAAACuM/eDa4JsUpp_8/s400/waltz_with_bashir.jpg

PsychologyToday - Why You Can't Trust Your Memory (of Anything) by David Ludden Ph.D

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/talking-apes/201603/why-you-cant-trust-your-memory-anything

TeenHealthFX - Worries, Fears, and Anxiety Disorders

http://www.teenhealthfx.com/answers/emotional-health/worries-fears-and-anxiety-disorders.detail.html/49967.html

Voyant-Tools.org

Wiki Images - Death and the Maiden

http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcROnQiSIwv9fyhAuXcKqOctySkZtHoXrTcBXRdYCiK_avrdmMO9

#Memory #HannahArendt #WaltzwithBashir #DeathandtheMaiden