paper 2 - memory police

Question 1

Role of memory in the memory police

Answer 1

• memory shaped the protagonist’s character
• her sense of self and identity is closely tied to her memories
• losing her memory is an emotionally destructive journey
  (eroding memory reflects her eroding soul)

Question 2

Quotes about memory in the memory police

Answer 2

• Without memories we are hollow. What we love, what we grieve, it all slips through our fingers.
• Memories are what bind us to the world. Without them, there is no us, only a void where meaning once lived.
• It was as though the act of forgetting had also erased the color of the world.
• With every dissappearance, the space in my heart where these objects once lived grows darket, emptier

Question 3

What types of losses are mentioned in the memory police

Answer 3

• loss of family
• physical and emotional loss
• loss of personal identity
• loss as a collective experience - the reactions from different individuals

Question 4

Why is loss in the book the memory police significant?

Answer 4

• disappearance of objects means that the personal connections tied to such items is lost (the cultural and historical contexts that give them each meaning is lost)
• loss of personal memories means that she loses ability to connect to her own past
• the society mournes when objects when they disappear- yet they move on and loss is shallow as they forget what they had been mourning

Question 5

Quotes about loss in the memory police

Answer 5

• Who am I, if the pieces of my life that define me can disappear without a trace?
• We cried for the things we lost, but even our tears were stolen by time.

Question 6

What kinds of isolation does the protagonist face in the memory police

Answer 6

• physical isolation
• social isolation
• self-imposed isolation

Question 7

Quotes about isolation

Answer 7

• the village felt quieter, not just from the missing objects, but from the missing connections between us.

Question 8

What is the importance of human connection in the memory police

Answer 8

• the role of human connection in maintaining hope
• resistance through connection
• memory as an element that keeps communities and individuals together (erosion of memory can lead to an erosion of culture and emotion)

Question 9

About societal opression and power dynamics in the memory police

Answer 9

The memory police
- represents the dehumanization inherent in authoritarian regimes
- surveillence and fear
- erasure of memory as a form of control
- institutional vs. individual power
- fear leads to compliance

Question 10

About story-in-story in the memory police

Answer 10

• it is an embedded narrative (meta-narrative)
• shows the fragility of expression and memory in an oppressive environment
• foreshadows the protagonists fate (gradual silencing)

Question 11

Role of symbolism in the memory police (what symbolism is there?)

Answer 11

Birds
- generally a symbol of hope and peace - the disappearance of them can symbolise the loss of hope and peace

Books
- memory, knowledge and individuality
- destruction of cultural identity

Control of Memory Police (an allegory)
- symbolises authoritarian regime

Question 12

What irony is present in the memory police?

Answer 12

• memory serves as both a control of danger and power (R and protagonists mother)
• Contradiction between the memory police and the idea that individuals must lose their memory
  “They remembered what we were supposed to forget”
• hope in isolation

Question 13

Examples of foreshadowing in the memory police

Answer 13

• the story-in-story (meta-narrative)
• protagonists mother hints at the dangers of resistance and retaining memory - the fate of individuals
• disappearance (disappearances foreshadows the complete erasure of individuality)

Question 14

Role of setting - different settings in the memory police

Answer 14

The unnamed island cut off from the rest of the world
- absence of any outside world represents the authoritarian control and the distancing societal decay
- isolation of island mirrors the psychological isolation of its inhabitants

River
- Represents the passage of time and the uncontrollable losses
- objects are thrown into the river to signify their disappearances
- A metaphor for forgetting
“the river carried away the things we were meant to forget, until it felt like it carried pieces of us too”

House
- house was both a sanctuary (but safe) and prison

Changing Landscape
- The setting transforms as objects and memories disappear
- becomes more empty and surreal
“the streets grew emptier with each disappearance,until even the shadows seemed hesitant to linger”
- changing landscape is a parallel to the psychological erosion of the characters
- blurs the line between physical and mental