Memoir Reflection

 What I found interesting about the memories shared in both Becoming and Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal? is the emotion that both key memories left with the author. When Michelle Obama was describing that memory she had with her boyfriend at the time, she explained that she only remembered it because of how it made her feel. Frolicking in the field with her boyfriend was something out of her usual routine, which is probably another reason why she remembers it so well. But what's important to keep in mind is that she doesn't remember the small details, like what she was wearing or if her boyfriend called her on the phone or asked her in person if she wanted to go for a ride. The only thing that was worth remembering is how she felt in that one brief moment of carefree fun. Jeanette Winterson on the other hand remembers small, and seemingly meaningless, details like the cowboy outfit and fringed hat she had on. Winterson seems to have the gift of memory that was touched upon in “The Art of Memoir”.  Mary Karr explained in that article that some people pick up on the smallest of details, simply because they have a good memory. Winterson is able to paint a more colorful picture with her good memory and random details, but what really mattered was the fact that she remembered it at all. Just like Michelle Obama’s memory, Winterson’s memory was one that held strong emotions–only her memory deals with negative emotions like loneliness, confusion, and pain. 

These evidently meaningless details that Winterson remembers ties into the “infantile amnesia” that was discussed in the article “Of Memoir and Memory”.  Much of the article argued that we should approach reading memoirs differently–not like a work of fiction such as poetry or a novel, but instead we should analyze them through a better understanding of human memory. What I enjoyed about Winterson’s excerpt was that she was aware of the fact that life is “part fact, part fiction”, and her memoir was simply her version of a story that could be told in many different ways. She said, “The saddest part for me, thinking about the cover version that is Oranges, is that I wrote a story I could live with. The other one is too painful. I could not survive it.” This relates back to the Freudian perspective mentioned in “Of Memoir and Memory”, where someone creates new memories in replacement with a traumatic one. Rarely do you hear a person being so honest and self-aware when they are writing their memoir, but Winterson deliberately reminds the reader of this fact because it is important to keep in mind. Not only when you are reading, but when you are writing as well.