Does My Memory Serve Me Correct

Does My Memory Serve Me Correct?

When I was younger I used to bully around other kids at school. I remember at recess I would throw sand in little girls hair and pour sand down boys pants. I was so terrible that I stabbed this kid with a pencil in art class and got suspended in kindergarten. This is the first memory that comes to mind when I think about my childhood. “Is that why I am so mean today because of my bully days in elementary school”, I asked my mother. “No, that never happened, you were the one always getting sand thrown in your hair and you got stabbed with a pencil”, she replied. Why is it that I remember that memory totally opposite of how it really happened? Is it that in reality I subconsciously wanted to be the bully rather than be bullied? How is it that in my life today I am the bully and don’t get bullied anymore? Is it because of that memory I am tough today? Woolf says, “Memory is the means by which the individual builds up patterns of personal significance to which to anchor his or her life….”(Woolf 21). I believe she is stating that memory builds your personality, if this is true then I, my personality, is not really me, myself. My personality is build up of others thoughts, experiences, and memories not just mine. This is because the process of remembering itself is not reliable, it is unbalanced and has many defects.

If you were told what happened but was not actually there to see it, does that still make it your memory? I, Rigoberta Menchu is a prime example of collective memory. Collective memory is when you get a mental picture of what someone else told you that they have seen or heard and then you incorporate it as your own memory. “I’d like to stress that it’s not only my life, it’s also the testimony of my people”(Menchu 1), states Rigoberta at the opening of her biography. This is a major problem when writing and memory collides within a biography, relying on others thoughts and experiences. In her book Rigoberta says that she was a maid in the capitol when her brother came with news that their father had been arrested. Rigoberta then proceeds to explain the situation, in her eyes, what her father did to be arrested and how it all happened. My question is, how do I know that this is all true if it is not coming from Rigoberta’s eyes? How does Rigoberta even know if it was true? Things that you do not see with your own eyes can not be reliable, that is just like gossiping. When one thing happens, the same does not happen in everyone’s eyes. What I see going on the person right next to me might not. What really happened was not told to her, it is what her brother interpreted