Transmitted Memories in David Whitehouse's The Long Forgotten

Year 2021, Volume: 1 Issue: 2, 76 - 87, 15.10.2021

Aurelija Daukšaıtė-kolpakovıenė

Abstract

This article aims to discuss how memory is represented in David Whitehouse’s novel The Long Forgotten (2018), as it focuses on a peculiar kind of remembering which probably does not happen outside the fictional reality of the novel. In addition, this memory is not included among the commonly distinguished types of memory. To be more precise, even though Dove Gale, the protagonist, has certain memories that help him understand where he comes from and who he really is, these memories are not his individual memories but rather a collection of transmitted memories of somebody else. To a certain extent his memory can be seen as a postmemory, but the concept “memory of memories” probably describes it even better. Dove’s memory may also seem to be similar to vicarious remembering, but the emotions he feels while remembering are not his own but rather the feelings that the participants of the memories felt in certain situations in the past. Thus, the discussion of memory in the novel relies on memory studies and relevant concepts in the field.

Keywords

Memory, Transmission of memory, Memories of memories, David Whitehouse, The Long Forgotten

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