Do memories ever tell the “truth?”
Recreating past experiences can’t always be accurate. We seem to think that we can reveal the truth of our experiences in the slightest details through our memories. However sometimes this leads more to what we have understood of the experience rather than what really happened. We tend to get ourselves confused with many details that occur during a certain period. Through time, we commonly mix up all these details that we do not think off as important and therefore see the “truth” as we would like it to remember. Can the “truth” then ever be exposed? Can we ever recall for certain a past experience?
As we read Wideman’s “Our Time”, we discover that he attempts to reveal the story of his brother, Robby who his in prison. He claims in many different passages that he does not entirely know how to tell his brother’s story. Can he actually tell us the true story? No matter how many details his brother can remember, it can never be told as it truly happened. That is the reason why it is in the past… he cannot live it again. Wideman says that “the business of making a book together was new for both of us. Difficult. Awkward.” (768) Here, talking about his brother and him, he shows that recreating, reliving in some way, an event is not easy. Indeed, we cannot simply recreate something that has already been done.
Nothing can be done exactly the same way twice. As it is the case with a photo, a painting, anything… no matter how much effort we put into reproducing the same photo, painting or anything else, we will never obtain the same result, even if it looks similar. Nothing can ever be the same because everything is unique. A past experience is unique, therefore trying to bring back memories of what we claim being the “truth” isn’t easy, it is even impossible. We can never recall all the details that actually happened because we are never really focused on what is around us. Wideman also shares a similar idea when he says: “I’m remembering the day. Wondering why it had slipped completely from my mind. I feel like a stranger. Yet as Robby talks, my memory confirms details of his recollection. I admit, yes. I was there. That’s the way it was. But where was I? Who was I? How did I miss so much?” (783) Through this quote, we understand that it is not enough to be in a certain place to know what has happened there at the same moment. Sometimes, being somewhere does not mean that we “were” there. Therefore we can’t give the “truth” about it. We focus on some things and don’t pay attention to other things. Regardless of how hard we look at something, or an experience, we mostly never really see it. Unconsciously we only see what we wish to see. Therefore bringing out the story of a past experience in its “truth” cannot be done.
For Wideman, the story is not even his. Before writing down into words what his brother has told him, he must first vision it in his mind. Whenever, somebody tells a simple story, to better understand it, we automatically picture the story in our minds. That is how the information goes into our minds. We hear something, imagine how it looks like, and then reproduce it. As Wideman hears his brother’s story, he imagines how it happened with all the information he gets, therefore, as we, the readers read the story of his brother, we do not read the true story that can’t be told in the first place, but we read the story of Wideman’s vision of the his brother’s life.
Through his story we also notice the use of many voices that give different views on Robby’s story. This gives him the possibility to reveal the “truth” about who Robby is. He thinks that by writing different views on his brother, it might bring out the “truth” about him. This is a way to show how people knew him in his best and worst behavior. Wideman uses this technique of writing to help the reader discover Robby. He attempts to make us see Robby as who he really is. Yet this is not as easy as it sounds. The “truth” cannot be found simply by giving different opinions. It would be the same result as many people telling the story of a same experience they have all shared together. If one person cannot give all the details of an experience, it does not mean that another person can fill the blanks about that story. The “truth” cannot be found just by adding different views.
This same concept is also found in the movie “Citizen Kane.” The death of Charles Foster Kane, a famous ambitious and charismatic man, led people to curiosity when his last word was “Rosebud.” Who was “Rosebud”? What did it mean? A journalist named Mr. Thompson had to find out more about this by interviewing people who knew Kane. Among those were his second wife Susan Alexander Kane, his best friend Jed Leland and more. These people were Thompson’s different views on Kane. They were the voices and through them we could see what kind of a man Charles Foster Kane was. We saw him as they saw him. We saw him through their eyes. However, does this mean that we now know who Kane was? Could we say that we know the true story of his life? In a certain way, we may because we have “seen” him as they remember him, but to the extent of saying that we know the “truth” about him… that is not possible. How can we know for sure that what they recall is the absolute “truth” about him? Kane said around the middle of the movie that: “there is only one person in the world to decide what I’m going to do. And that’s me.” Here talking about him, he implies that he is the only person that can have power over himself. He decides for himself because he is the only one that knows himself, therefore we cannot know the “truth” about his story because none of the people Thompson was getting his information from was the one person who knew Kane better than anyone, himself.
The “truth” about Kane can only be found on a superficial level, not in its true meaning. As with Wideman’s story of his brother, in “Citizen Kane,” the person who tells the story is not the person of the story. Thompson is not even as close as Wireman, because he didn’t know Kane personally. His facts are based on stories people have told him. He doesn’t have any proof of what he has learned. Consequently, finding the “truth” about Kane, about his story cannot be done. We did learn more from one person to another but what we learned about Kane were only certain events that occurred in his life. These events cannot summarize his personality. According to one person, Kane said that he had a double personality, himself and the publisher of his newspaper. Who is then the real Kane? Can we ever know? As far as we are able to know anything about him, this last question remains a mystery because in this case, the puzzle cannot be completed. The one piece that is missing to finish the puzzle, to know who Kane was, is the one piece that represents him. He holds that last piece and without it, the “truth” about him can’t ever be found.
I remember something similar to Wideman and Kane’s stories that has happened to me. Last July was my best friend’s graduation. She had been to my graduation the previous month and seeing her get her high school diploma was important to me. We have known each other since we were three years old, and there has never been a time where one of us wasn’t just there for the other. I had moved to Lebanon from Paris three years prior to our last high school year but that still didn’t prevent us from talking and seeing each other whenever it was possible or even being there for one of our birthdays. We were always there for each other and always will be… However, last July, I had to miss her graduation. The only way I was able to get closer to that special event was for her to tell me about it, and show me pictures.
It was a beautiful summer day, when she stood on the dais, where all her teachers were sitting and watching her and every other student. She was standing there in front of her parents and many other families that were watching their children getting their diplomas. Dressed in her blue gown and wearing her blue cap, she shook her school’s president’s hand and took her diploma. She was proud of herself; anybody could see it in her eyes. No words could express the feeling she had at that moment, the feeling of accomplishment. She had finally done it. She had gone to school all these years, studied and learned what she had to, and then it was over. Her heart was already beating fast while she was still sitting on her seat waiting for her row to be called out, waiting for her name to be said. She already knew by then that this meant the end of a chapter of her life but it just as well meant the beginning of another one. Even an hour earlier, as she was waiting for the ceremony to start she couldn’t stand still because she was so excited. She kept on walking around, talking to her family and friends. All this excitement to get a diploma, a simple piece of paper that represented her accomplishment.
By the time she told me the story, her graduation was nothing more than a simple memory that she tried to bring back to life. It was a past experience she wanted to share with me. As I listened to her, I could feel her excitement and happiness passing through me and somehow I was imagining how that day was. With her story and all the pictures she had showed me, I was picturing her in my mind. I felt as though I was part of that day, being there for her, being proud of watching her reach for her diploma. Yes, I felt as though I was there that day and I am telling you now the story of her graduation as though I was there. However is this how it really happened? Is it the “truth”? Obviously, she hasn’t lied to me but is the way she explained it to me the way it really was? We can never tell the story of a past experience down to the very last detail. We only have two eyes that look straight in front of us, everything around remains a mystery. It is impossible to know absolutely everything about what happens, even though we could be standing in the very same room. I am sure that she couldn’t have possibly told me every single detail about her graduation in just half an hour! Somehow I was seeing her there but that was just my imagination trying to recreate a story.
Therefore, as we have seen with Wideman’s story, “Citizen Kane,” and my own experience, the “truth” can never be told because we cannot recreate anything exactly as it was. In Wideman’s “Our Time,” Robby says that “you stop thinking in terms of something being good or being evil, you just try to say this happened because that happened because something else came first.” (778) What does Robby mean by that? He only means that trying to find the “truth” about one experience goes much deeper than the experience itself. You have to look through other experiences. But then, this process just goes on and on. Can we then ever find the “truth”? We can only explain an experience in a superficial way, trying to get into details but these won’t bring out the “truth.” The only way to understand an experience is to look for something that started it and go back to the very beginning… Where is then the beginning? All these open question can only lead to one same answer, the “truth” can never be told.
Works Cited
Wideman, John Edgar. “Our Time.” Ways of Reading: An Anthology for Writers. 6th ed. Ed. David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky. Boston and New York: Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 2002. 588-601
Citizen Kane. Dir. Orson Welles, Perf. Orson Welles, Joseph Cotton, Dorothy Comingore and Agnes Moorehead, DVD
The above essay was written by a college student and merely states opinions of a college student. However, if you feel strong about responding to the opinions stated, please write to articles@directorym.com and express your concerns.