Repression vs. Amnesia

Repression vs. Amnesia

Memory is a dynamic part of everyday life. It helps people function and communicate with each other without a second thought. This communication and function can be hindered if the person experiences a traumatic event. There are two main forms of trauma, physical and emotional, each of which can cause major damage to the victims mind. Both types can cause a person to have flashbacks to the traumatic event or even temporary amnesia. In his novel Remainder, Tom McCarthy uses The Narrator to demonstrate a case of physical trauma where The Narrator has an object fall on his head placing him in a coma. The second type of trauma, emotional trauma, is represented by Grandfather in Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel Everything is Illuminated where grandfather experiences a traumatic situation when he was younger but represses the memory of what happened. Foer uses Grandfather to demonstrate the struggle to overcome the trauma when he chooses to repress his memories, as opposed to McCarthy who uses The Narrator to show the initial success at overcoming trauma when there is no choice to repress the memories or not due to a case of amnesia. The Narrator uses a series of re-enactments in order to try to become more flaccid, due to the loss of memory and need to relearn every movement he makes caused by the traumatic event that he experiences.

As The Narrator recovers from his coma caused by an object falling on him he is attending physiotherapy sessions in order to regain his memory of movement and action. This therapy is causing The Narrator to think out each retraction and relaxation of muscles in a given task. As The Narrator does this it is becoming imprinted on his mind that he has to think out everything h...

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...hows the effects of amnesia and how it is possible to overcome it and continue on with life. The Narrator himself does not continue on with life as he ends it by having the plane continuously fly in circles. He does show however that it is possible to get back to a sense of normal. Grandfather on the other hand did not suffer from amnesia but chose to repress his memory. This caused him to live an unhappy life and after finally bringing the memory out into the open he felt he was finally happy. This happiness, he felt, completed his life and that there was no longer a need to live. In the end both men handled there situation differently with The Narrator re-enacting his only memory over and over and Grandfather repressing his as long as possible. Although they handled these situations differently they ultimately ended their lives in similar manners.