Сочинение: Consistency

Liza Mirkovskaya

Professor Shaffer

English Composition 3

10 November 2003

Harmony within the Split Self

A person needs to be in harmony with himself or herself and the surrounding

world. Psychoanalysts assert that it is the main condition of the wellness of

a person. Inner harmony can be achieved only when consistency within the self

is present. Human memory is an instrument of creating consistency within the

self. Why and what do we remember? A memoir writer, Patricia Hampl, and a

psychologist, Susan Engel, have developed their own theories of memory. In

her essay, “Then and Now: Creating a Self through the Past”, Engel presents a

psychological viewpoint of creating oneself through memory. She argues that

the characteristics of the present self are determined by the past

experiences and memories one possesses. She suggests that a person cannot

exist without having memories; moreover, these memories need to be consistent

and coherent for the person to feel secure in society. Engel also expresses

the idea that the past and the present are connected through memories. Engel

presents a paradox between the self for the self, which strives to achieve

inner consistency, and the self for others, which brings up different

memories in different situations to create a different persona. Hampl bases

her theory of memory in the piece “Memory and Imagination” on her first piano

lesson. In her essay, she explores why human beings use their imagination

while remembering the past. She also asks herself why people write memoirs.

According to Hampl, a person is an interaction of two selves. The reflective

self looks back at the narrative self to make sure that no openly false

memories are brought up. Hampl’s essay provides some deep insight on Engel’s

theory of memory. Some of Engel’s ideas about why memory is created fully

apply to Hampl’s first piano lesson. Engel claims that a person strives to

achieve harmony and consistency in the present through reconstructing past

memories. Harmony of inner world is achieved through the interaction of two

types of selves: self for the self and the self for others, according to

Engel, and narrative and reflective, according to Hampl. Each of these selves

acts differently to produce consistency within the individual. Engel also

believes that some memories serve to evoke other ones by associations.

Engel argues that human beings attempt to create a sense of consistency

within themselves. People tend to believe that their personas are coherent

and constant over time. As Elliot Aronson contends, “we like to believe we

are consistent over time and across situations” (Engel 199). When this

coherence within the self is disrupted, an individual feels empty and

confused. A person feels that his or her moral foundation and concepts are

destroyed. Engel mentions that “we construct reality in a way that restores

our self-concept” (199). Our self-concept can only be restored in the

presence of inner harmony and consistency; thus, we try to make our reality

consistent over time. Sometimes it is hard to achieve this consistency. One

of the reasons for this matter is that it is impossible for the human mind to

store all of the images of the past. Therefore, we forget some of the events

that might have served as links, connecting other memories. As a result, our

memory tends to sometimes be abrupt and inconsistent. Engel’s claim that we

strive to achieve greater coherence within the selves applies to Hampl’s

first piano lesson in that inventing imaginary events of the past helps us to

achieve greater consistency.

According to Hampl, invention “isn’t a lie, but an act of necessity, as the

innate urge to locate personal truth always is” (187). Hampl implies that

invention of past events is an inevitable step for searching for accuracy in

memories. By truth, she refers to her knowledge of herself. Hampl asserts

that she writes to “find out what she knows” (184). As a result, she invents

some parts of the past to unify it, which helps her to find out more “truth”

about herself. Hampl acknowledges that some parts of her first piano lesson

memory are, in fact, invented. She has invented that the nun’s name was Olive

and that she possessed the Thompson book, a piano text. Hampl agrees that she

“remembers envying children who did have this wonderful book with its

pictures of children and animals printed on the pages of music” (183).

Therefore, possessing what she wanted to possess elevated her self-esteem,

which ultimately led to the greater harmony and consistency within her mind.

However, striving to achieve consistency within the self is only one part of

Engel’s theory of memory. Engel implies that part of her theory is a paradox

between the inner consistency that an individual struggles to attain and

numerous selves that the individual presents to others. Engel argues that “we

work hard to create and maintain a sense of inner cohesion and consistency in

our self-concept.” (199). While doing that, we refer to our “self for the

self”, which tries to preserve this precious inner balance by creating a

positive image of itself (198). Positive image of the self, in turn, leads to

elevated self-esteem, which leads to greater inner harmony, and, ultimately,

greater consistency. In the meantime, a person displays many different

selves depending on the situation that person is in. Engel suggests that “we

are always remembering in the company of others”, meaning that other people

influence the kinds of memories that we bring up in the conversations (193).

Depending on how others expect to perceive our personalities, we will recall

certain events to justify their expectations. As a result, “we create

different faces, or selves, in response to different social situations”

(198). These different faces are manifestations of the self for others. Each

time, while communicating with others, we create a different persona to

emphasize certain qualities that will be valued the most at this given time.

Engel mentions that “we change past experiences so that they confirm how we

see ourselves in the moment” (200). Thus, depending on the moment, we might

recall particular events from our past to prove and display a particular

persona that we wish to be at the moment. Therefore, it is the social setting

that influences the kind of persona we would like to present, thus affecting

the memories we select.

Engel’s idea of recalling the past in the “company” (193) of other people

applies to Hampl’s first piano lesson. Hampl depicts her first experience

with the piano music by describing the people surrounding her. She talks

about what Sister Olive Marie looked like and how she acted. She mentions

that it was her father who led her into the room. Hampl remembers that Mary

Katherine Reilly was better at the piano than she was. Nowhere in her

description does Hampl describe herself: what she looked like, what she was

wearing, etc. Thus, by putting an emphasis on the description of others in

her memoir, Hampl reinforces the idea that we do recall events as they were

occurring in the company of other people.

Engel’s claim that a person consists of two selves also applies to Hampl’s

piano lesson. In the explanation of her piano lesson memory, Hampl comes to

the conclusion that it was really her two selves interacting – the narrative

self and the reflective self – to produce satisfactory memory. According to

Hampl, the narrative self is a persona telling the story and unconsciously

inventing some imaginary details to attain more consistency; the reflective

self tries to keep the narrative self “ in check” by contemplating what in

the story could have been true or false. The reflective self tries to

eliminate false memories from the story, making the memoir valid. For

example, Hampl’s narrative self was telling a story about the first piano

lesson. It unintentionally recalled false memories to fill in the gaps

between the true memories. For example, Hampl mentions that it was her father

who led her into the room with the piano, that the Sister’s name was Olive,

that she had a Thompson book with her. However, Hampl’s reflective self

became active when she was analyzing what she had remembered and what could

have been false in the story. Hampl starts questioning whether it was really

her father that showed her the way and whether the Sister’s name was truly

Olive. There is a certain paradox that Hampl faces as well. Although the

narrative self creates events that unify the memory by inventing, a memoirist

cannot afford writing about events that did not occur. That is why the

reflective self is so important to a memoir writer. Although Hampl mentions

that ideally “for a memoirist, the writing of the story is a matter of

transcription [describing dry facts]”, she cannot refrain from inventing

since transcription is a “myth of memoir” (183, 184). Therefore, a memoirist

needs to find yet another way to create a coherent and valid story through

staying away from too much invention. One way to do that is to recall

template memories.

Engel claims that there are special kinds of memories – template memories -

stored in our minds. According to Engel, a template memory is “a memory that

stands for a large more diffuse meaning or theme in person’s life” (204).

Engel implies that our memories are sorted according to themes; recalling a

certain event - a template - will cause us to remember more. Association

stored in mind is what makes us remember more of events related to the same

theme. For example, Engel recalls the tonsillectomy procedure that she had to

go through when she was five. She remembers that it was really difficult for

her to choose which parent to go home with after the operation. Engel later

remembered the tonsillectomy because she was faced with a difficult job

decision. Unconsciously, in her mind, she associated the inability to choose

between the two options that she had with having to choose between two

parents. In this case, the tonsillectomy was a template. It caused Engel to

remember her childhood, an event pertaining to the theme of choice. Engel

also claims that template memories cause people to not only remember events

but also experience feelings that they once felt while living through a

particular event. For example, when Engel had to decide which parent to go

home with, she felt concern of her parents, hesitation, misery for having

chosen her father instead of her mother, and uneasiness in relations with her

father. When she had to make a choice related to her job, she also

experienced hesitation, uneasiness, and desperation.

The claim of templates fully applies to Hampl’s first piano lesson. Hampl

remembers that when she was seven, her father took her to her first piano

lesson. The piano lesson itself acts as a template memory. However, this

“template” causes Hampl to remember more about the lesson. Hampl recalls that

the room was “full of pianos. There many little girls and a single sad boy

were playing truly tortured scales and arpeggios in a mash of troubled sound”

(181). Hampl’s teacher, Sister Olive, “was a small, plump woman; her body

and the small window of her face seemed to interpret the entire alphabet of

olive.” (181). Hampl remembers that Sister Olive used to sneeze a lot, which

seemed strange to little Hampl. She recalls that Sister Olive gave her a

Thompson book and told her to practice. At the same time, Mary Katherine

Reilly was playing something much more sophisticated, which made Hampl feel

inferior. All of these events are caused by the template memory – the piano

lesson. Hampl would probably never remember them as single events had she

never thought of her piano lesson. While recalling her first piano lesson,

Hampl also remembers her feelings at the moment. In her essay, she implies

that she experienced fear of the unknown, inferiority, and boredom. She felt

estranged in the unfamiliar place.

Both Engel and Hampl assert that memory is essential in constructing a self

through the past. Human identity, to be useful in the society, needs to be

coherent and in harmony with itself. Despite the conflict between the

different selves, human beings strive to attain harmony. This demanding inner

effort of human beings is necessary to preserve human uniqueness and stay

connected to the society. Thus, by overcoming internal and external

conflicts, human beings, with all their life memories, come to realize their

ideals and goals.

Works Cited

Engel, Susan. “Then and Now: Creating a Self Through the Past”. Mind

Readings: An Anthology for Writers. Ed. Gary Colombo. Boston/New York:

Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002. 193-204.

Hampl, Patricia. “Memory and Imagination”. Mind Readings: An Anthology for

Writers. Ed. Gary Colombo. Boston/New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002.

181-190.