THEMES - The Memory Police Flashcards
“[The Memory Police] are lurking everywhere… Before we know it they’ll have tested everyone on the island and stored our information in their database” p25
- Authoritarianism and surveillance
- Complicity
~ Ogawa exemplifies the numerous ways in which the Memory Police have physical and cognitive power over the townspeople
~ As the story progresses, the Memory Police gain more power over the island’s population. As the severity of the disappearances increases, so does the brutality of the Memory Police’s supervision and enforcement
“She was definitely under observation, being studied” p25
- Authoritarianism and surveillance
- Autonomy and free will
- Compliance
~ Authoritarianism within the text is exhibited through the population’s acceptance of the Memory Police’s regime. Character’s will often express disagreements or question the disappearances. However, they ultimately all submit to the Memory Police’s authority- even as they give up their autonomy and freedom for it.
“…the best way to keep him safe was to keep him completely isolated” p253
- Authoritarianism and surveillance
- Complicity vs resistance
- Isolation
- Community
- Autonomy and free will
~ Through hiding R, the narrator and old man are resisting the Memory Police’s orders
~ The only way to keep R safe from the oppressive nature of the Memory Police is completely isolating him, R is arguably more oppressed within the hidden room than he is outside of it.
“No matter what disappeared next, no matter how close the Memory Police came to finding us, he could do nothing but remain in the secret room” p.228
- Isolation
- Complicity vs resistance
- Fate vs free will
- Autonomy
- Identity
- Authoritarianism and surveillance
~ Just like the woman in the narrator’s novel, R has been stripped of his free will
~ R has been stripped of his identity and autonomy, forced to rely on the care of others to avoid the Memory Police
“Every last bit of me will disappear” p.257
- Disappearance and loss
- Fate and free will
- Isolation
~ Ogawa suggests that under a regime that holds the power to disappear memories, individuals do not hold autonomy over their own bodies and minds
“The ferry has been disappeared and there’s nothing more to be said about it” p.17
AND
“You have to stop worrying about things like that… The disappearances are beyond our control. They have nothing to do with us” p.
- Disappearance and loss
- Identity
- Complicity and acceptance
- Free will
- Creation and destruction
~ By choosing to destroy and abandon disappeared items, Ogawa depicts the characters in the novel not just as complicit, but as active players in their own oppression
~ The insistence that “the disappearances… have nothing to do with [them]” is a reflection of the character’s cognitive dissonance that allows them to remain helpless in the regime
~ The characters are quick to abandon their livelihoods after they are disappeared. However their occupations are closely tied to their identities, as evidenced though the old man living on his boat and the title of “the former hatmaker”. Ogawa exemplifies that each disappearance plays a role in eroding the character’s sense of self.
“There is no map of the island… no one knows it’s precise shape, or exactly what lies on the other side of the mountains” p.8
AND
“what can people on the island create?… we can’t compensate for the things that get lost” p.53
- Fate and Free will
- Isolation
- Isolation vs community
- Creation and destruction
~ The disappearance of maps is symbolic of the populations restriction of free will through movement and knowledge
~ Ogawa suggests that the regime maintains power through restricting knowledge and repressing creativity, leading to the character’s being “hollowed out”
~ On the island, creative pursuits such as writing (novels), music, and sculpture are implicitly viewed as a form of resistance- the old man suggests that the narrator comes up with “extreme ideas” because she “writes novels”
“It’s disturbing to see things that have disappeared, like
tossing something hard and thorny into a peaceful pond.
It sets up ripples, stirs up a whirlpool below, throws up
mud from the bottom. So we have no choice, really, but to
burn them or bury them.”~
~ Memories are sad and
painful
~Memories are strongly connected to feelings, senses and
a sense of identity
“‘Do you remember everything? Forever?’
She looked down, as though this were something sad…”
~ Memories are sad and
painful
~ Memories are strongly connected to feelings, senses and
a sense of identity
~ Memories represent that life will “dissolve”
“The days flowed by
monotonously and
uneventfully”
~ The erasure of memories has left the
ordinary people of The Memory Police . . . *spiritless
*without a sense of purpose
*compliant
*with neither despair nor hope
“Up until now,
everyone has been focused on trying to hide. No one even
imagined he could get away by crossing the sea. Even the
Memory Police seemed caught off guard.”
~ People can’t comprehend how to resist
“It’s just that you have to
hide here because of those memories. If you could let yours fade
away like the rest of us, there’s be no need.”
~ People urge each other to conform
~ How the community and individuals respond to disappearances
“The townspeople avoided
going out any more than necessary, and on weekends they
stayed home and shoveler the snow. They closed their curtains
at dusk and lived as quietly as possible. It was though the snow
had frozen their hearts.”
~ People disconnect from the world
~ How the community and individuals respond to disappearances
“A new hole has opened in my heart, and there’s no way to fill it up again… The new cavities in my heart search for things to burn. They drive me to burn things and I can only stop when everything is in ashes”
- Character’s respond to disappearances in a manner which is similar to being grief stricken
- Characters become numb to the disappearances
- Characters are resigned
- Their grief drives them to obliterate the past
- Characters are complicit to the disappearances and the regime
“I decided to begin hiding as many of the objects that disappeared as I could… Touching them became a way of confirming that I was still alive”
- The removal of objects erodes civilian’s sense of reality and identity
- Calls back to the protagonist’s mother who was a sculpture, creating these new objects or monumental objects is a method of resistance and coping against the oppressive regime
