In Popular Culture
The absence of retrospective memory creates an amnesia that has frequently been a key element in plot lines in television, film and novels. Some examples are:
- Remember Me, a novel by Sophie Kinsella, in which amnesia is caused by trauma.
- The Bourne Identity, a novel by Robert Ludlum and a film adaptation, in which amnesia is caused by trauma.
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a film by Michel Gondry, in which amnesia is caused by a company who are hired to erase painful memories.
Memory is frequently the subject of many wise quotations. The following are some examples relating to retrospective memory (or lack thereof):
- Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us.-Oscar Wilde
- Not the power to remember, but its very opposite, the power to forget, is a necessary condition for our existence.-Sholem Asch
Read more about this topic: Retrospective Memory
Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, popular and/or culture:
“Popular culture entered my life as Shirley Temple, who was exactly my age and wrote a letter in the newspapers telling how her mother fixed spinach for her, with lots of butter.... I was impressed by Shirley Temple as a little girl my age who had power: she could write a piece for the newspapers and have it printed in her own handwriting.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“We live under continual threat of two equally fearful, but seemingly opposed, destinies: unremitting banality and inconceivable terror. It is fantasy, served out in large rations by the popular arts, which allows most people to cope with these twin specters.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“The fact remains that the human being in early childhood learns to consider one or the other aspect of bodily function as evil, shameful, or unsafe. There is not a culture which does not use a combination of these devils to develop, by way of counterpoint, its own style of faith, pride, certainty, and initiative.”
—Erik H. Erikson (1904–1994)