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Prepared by
Vaidehi Hariyani
Semester 4
Batch – 2015-17
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
The role of Memory in “A Grain of Wheat” and “The Sense of an Ending”
New
“A Grain of Wheat”
“The Sense of an Ending”
the ability of the mind or of a person or organism to
retain learned information and knowledge of past
events and experiences and to retrieve that information
and knowledge
Memory
• First Person Narrator
• Memory Novel
• It also begins with the present day
• Based on personal history of Tony Webster (Protagonist)
• Multiple Narrators
• Use of Flashback Technique
• Begins with the present day
• Contains historical background
NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE
A GRAIN OF WHEAT THE SENSE OF AN ENDING
Mugo
• All is well
• No trace of anything wrong
• Severe damage to his friend Adrian
• Probably due to him, Adrian does suicide.
• Realizes the damage done by him
• Something disturbing
• Listens to conscience
• Betrayed his friend Kihika
• Due to him, Kihika is killed by the Britishers.
• Accepts his mistake
Tony
Remembers his Childhood and his past including his mistake
According to the narrator
I remember everything. But
“I remember, in no particular order”
• Here it is not Mugo’s memory, but the memory of the omniscient unreliable Narrator.
• May be the narrator is telling us the events according to his/her memory.
• In the first part, Tony is sharing events recalling from his memory.
• We find that he himself deconstructs what he tells the readers.
HOW FAR CAN WE RELY ON THE MEMORY OF BOTH THESE NARRATOR?
What you end up remembering isn’t always the same as what you have
witnessed.
• “History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.”
QUESTIONING HISTORY
Like both the narrators, our memory is also unreliable. The role of memory in both the text also makes us questions the
reliability of history. Something remains deep within us. We do not allow our own self
to visit that place.
We tend to think that memories are stored in our brains just as they are in computers.
But neuroscientists have shown that each time we remember something, we are reconstructing the event, reassembling it from traces throughout the brain.
Psychologists have pointed out that we also suppress memories that are painful or damaging to self-esteem. We could say that, as a result, memory is unreliable.
WORKS CITED
• Microsoft® Encarta® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
• Barnes, Julian. "The Sense of an Ending". New York: Alfred.A.Knopf, 2011.
• Eisold, Ken. Psychology Today. 12 March 2012. 29 March 2017 <https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hidden-motives/201203/unreliable-memory>.
• Thiongo, Ngugi wa. "A Grain of Wheat". Rev Socialist, n.d.
• Google Images
