Name: ___________________________________________________

Module C – Representation and Text

Elective 2: History & Memory

Prescribed Text: The Fiftieth Gate, Mark Raphael Baker

- Stimulus Booklet -

"It always begins in blackness, until the first light illuminates a hidden fragment of memory...."

Representation The act –

constructedness Purpose and intent Context Medium of production

and form Language/filmic/visual

Key terms from the Rubric

Medium of production: How is this text made? Is it filmed, written, drawn? etc.

Textual form: The text type of the work. Is it poetry? A novel? A short film? etc.

Perspective: The point of view being offered on the subject by the composer

Choice of language: Language (or filmic, etc.) techniques which help the composer to convey their message in this text.

/aural techniques Meaning conveyed

Representation:

This art work is a famous example of 'representation'. The picture is an apple, but the caption reads 'this is not an apple'. What is the author trying to say?

Physically it is not an apple, it is a painting. It is a representation of an apple, but it is not 'an apple'. Authors make choices when creating meaning, it is our job is this module to discuss how and why Baker has made these choices.

ACTIVITY 1: Read the following and discuss in the comments section:

"Almost nothing we discuss in this class will be about ‘facts.’ Indeed, it is my very clear contention, that facts are not what they are cracked up to be. Any seriously analysis of facts reveals them to be not all that factual. For example, if I were to measure the table at the front of the room, I would come up with slightly different measurements depending on my measuring ‘stick’ and the conditions in the room. Given the most accurate ‘stick’ imaginable, the measurements would actually change depending of the temperature of the room. And the measurements would certainly change depending on which ‘stick’ I used. "

Source: https://www.msu.edu/course/ams/280/represent.html

"This is not an apple"

How does this affect your understanding of History (facts)?

What does this quote say about 'representation'?

History:

o The study of past events, particularly in human affairs

o The past considered as a whole

o The whole series of past events connected with a particular person or thing

o A continuous, typically chronological, record of important or public events or of a particular trend or institution

Quotations about History

Choose three quotes from those listed below and write 2 – 3 sentences explaining what the author is conveying about the concept of History.

1. Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunters. ~African Proverb

2. The memories of men are too frail a thread to hang history from. ~John Still, The Jungle Tide

3. All the ancient histories, as one of our wits say, are just fables that have been agreed upon. ~Voltaire, Jeannot et Colin

4. History is herstory, too. ~Author Unknown

5. God cannot alter the past, though historians can. ~Samuel Butler, "Prose Observations"

6. A lot of history is just dirty politics cleaned up for the consumption of children and other innocents. ~Richard Reeves

7. The challenge of history is to recover the past and introduce it to the present. ~David Thelen

8. Crimes of which a people is ashamed constitute its real history. The same is true of man. ~Jean Genet

9. History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded with doubt and controversy; the inscription molders from the tablet: the statue falls from the pedestal. Columns,

arches, pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand; and their epitaphs, but characters written in the dust? ~Washington Irving, The Sketch Book: Westminster

Abbey

10. History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren't there. ~George Santayana

Source: http://www.quotegarden.com

Memory is:

o “A body of beliefs and ideas about the past that help a public or society understand both its past, present, and by implication, its future” Bodnar.

o Our ability to store, retain, and recall information and experiences. o Process by which we make sense of our lives

o Vital to our understanding of the past.

o Most people derive their values, their sense of justice and sense of identity in this world, from memories of past events, situations and relationships with others.

o Cultural and personal history

Memory gives:

Appreciation and insight

Contextual understanding

Perspective of personalised experience

Immediacy: the past is

brought to life

Empathetic connection to other times,

places , events and people

A humanised version of academic (recorded)

history

Memory produces:

A fuller understanding

of human nature and

the impact of events and

personal experience

Subjectivity and emotional engagement

with how people face

crisis

Truth can still be perceived

through fictional

accounts of real

people/events

empathy can become the trigger for

refelction, re-evaluation and

emotional undertsanding

Possible faults of memory:

Lapses – trauma, denial, time...

Selectivity-Different people

prioritize details

differently

Interplay between

memory and imagination

Bias

Age of person when

events occurred and

passage of time since

Limited perspective

relevant things

forgotten

Irreleavnt details

recalled

Variations of the

story/differing accounts.

which is accurate?

Quotations about Memory

Choose three quotes from those listed below and write 2 – 3 sentences explaining what the author is conveying about the concept of Memory.

1. A memory is what is left when something happens and does not completely unhappen. ~Edward de Bono

2. Memory is a child walking along a seashore. You never can tell what small pebble it will pick up and store away among its

treasured things. ~Pierce Harris, Atlanta Journal

3. We do not remember days; we remember moments. ~Cesare Pavese, The Burning Brand

4. There are lots of people who mistake their imagination for their memory. ~Josh Billings

5. Memory... is the diary that we all carry about with us. ~Oscar Wilde, "The Importance of Being Earnest"

6. And even if you were in some prison, the walls of which let none of the sounds of the world come to your senses - would you

not then still have your childhood, that precious, kingly possession, that treasure-house of memories? ~Rainer Maria Rilke

7. Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door. ~Saul Bellow

8. Memory itself is an internal rumour. ~George Santayana, The Life of Reason

9. A childhood is what anyone wants to remember of it. It leaves behind no fossils, except perhaps in fiction. ~Carol Shields

10.The past is never dead, it is not even past. ~William Faulkner