Zadie Smith's Epigraph

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Zadie Smith quotes Shakespeare in her epigraph to White Teeth: “What’s past is prologue” and this idea has shaped my learning of memory throughout this course. Entering in August, I did not have any understanding of how my memory was molding my future; however, when exiting I often find myself reflecting on a past event and how it has shaped the way that I respond to the world today. I now recognize that while the past affects who I am as a person, I am living in the present and cannot change what has happened; I can only learn from it. FINISH Chemically, the brain has a myriad of purposes, but one of the most interesting is its capability to process memory. The brain is able to fill in gaps in our vision and memory and store the information

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