Is Memory Identity?

I've read a lot of interesting articles, often by the famed neurologist Oliver Sacks, about memory and how wrapped up it is with identity. In particular, Sacks' tales of extreme amnesiacs, those who have lost all ability to make new memories, are harrowing stories about becoming unmoored in one's own sense of self. I've written a story about this; in my short story, a woman's progressive Alzheimer's disease causes her to move back in time in her life, losing the events that defined her later years.

The questions raised by such stories are whether memory constitutes identity, or whether there is something else, something residual, that makes up our self-image. The interesting thing Sacks observed was that while the patients were sometimes confused and disoriented, they often had one thing or person in their lives that kept them whole, able to maintain a sense of personality and self. Clive, the accomplished musician who lost all ability to maintain short-term memories, was held together through his knowledge of music. While he couldn't remember people or places or books for longer than a few seconds, he was able to play long piano pieces without difficulty. Other patients were kept whole through their devotion to a partner. No matter how much time had passed since a visit from a loved one, the patients remembered and were made calm and happy by the loved one's appearance.

After the jump: how do you write about memory?

With this in mind, it's interesting to see your range of choices when writing about memory. At one end of the spectrum is Nabokov, who believed that memory was essential not only to our identities but to our sense of the passage of time. The past does not exist, he believed, without memory of it. On the other end of the spectrum are writers who invest in concepts of the soul as immortal and housing an identity that cannot be destroyed by time or disease. It's up to you to decide what you think identity is dependent on.

Like me, you may be interested in the scientific and medical side of memory and what it means for our concepts of self. Or you may have a spiritual concern. Perhaps you subscribe to the Buddhist thought that there is no permanent self, only a series of mutually dependent impressions that come together. Your decision about identity will be a crucial element of how you choose to write about characters in your stories.

Comments

[Linda Cassidy Lewis]

Thank you for this thought provoking post. I often consider the nature of memory. The theme of my current work is how memories haunt us and affect our ability to live in the present.

[Upstate]

Just an observation. My father lived to be 90 and suffered from senile dementia. He no longer remembered me. But he retained essential personality traits, both his helpfulness and his stubbornness. All people have an essence that transends time and change. I suppose that is a comforting thought.