Follow-up essay: Postmodernism and Memento Mori

This post contains spoilers for those who haven't seen the movie Memento or read the short story “Memento Mori”. You can read the short story here.

To pass my Modern Intellectual History course, I had to write an analysis of Jonathan Nolan's short story “Memento Mori”. Some may know about it, but it contains the concept from which his brother Christopher developed the memorable Memento, starring Guy Pearce. Both stories contain the basic premise of a man who, following a violent trauma, has lost his short-term memory and can no longer remember anything new. The story is an improbable one, but it serves an important philosophical purpose: it uses the premises of Postmodern thinking to develop a disturbing but thoroughly thought-provoking idea, for those who are willing to think far enough.

Postmodernism is not as complicated as it sounds, but it does rely on some very complicated thinking to get to where it can exist as a way of thinking. I am definitely not an expert in modern philosophy, in fact I consider myself rather ignorant in that field, but here is basically what Postmodernism means (in a sketch).

Jean-François Lyotard, French philosopher, said Postmodernism is an incredulity towards metanarratives (“l'incrédulité à l'égard des métarécits”). What does he mean by that? A metanarrative would refer to a story that is able to englobe all stories; to make sense of your life, my life and everyone's life on Earth put together, in all of history. Until a few hundred years ago, the western world generally believed the Christian metanarrative, which is to say that God created the world and humans, humans sinned against God, Jesus came to save humans from their sins and die in their place taking the punishment for their sins against God and each other, giving them the grace to love one another, and Jesus would come again to bring an end to history and judgement of the living and the dead. This was in part replaced in the 18^th century by a few prominent intellectuals who said that through progress in science and medicine, the world would reach an ideal state: this was the metanarrative of the Enlightenment. After the two World Wars, people realised this metanarrative was not goint to come true and a sense of disillusionment came over many intellectuals (notably H.G. Wells, who had written books praising this worldview but ended up completely disillusioned). This is what Lyotard refers to when he says postmoderns don't believe in stories that englobe all stories. Because the world was in shambles, modernist thinkers were saying we need to reconstruct this world physically and intellectually, but postmoderns said “no, let's deconstruct it instead”, meaning they would break down what was understood to be generally accepted in the West and make people rethink their worldviews. But they didn't offer an all-encompassing worldview.

Back to “Memento Mori”. How is this in any way relevant to the story? That is what the whole story is about. The main character, who can't store any more information in his memory, is unable to put together a solid autobiography. He can only remember up to the point of him and his wife being attacked, so he is obviously obsessed by finding his wife's murderer. Thus, he tries to put together fragments, by leaving notes to himself and then by tattooing important information on his own body. But that does not guarantee that he is getting any closer to his objective. Every now and then, he wakes up in a room he doesn't recognise, sees in the mirror that he's aged, and realises that his body is covered in tattoos. The tragic irony of his case is that even if he did succeed in achieving his goal, he might not remember that he did and would just continue trying to achieve it. But the plot is developed in a way that leaves time gaps, ellipses, that are not accounted for. The reader is almost as clueless as the main character. That is why there is no clear beginning, middle and end to his story.

I explained this in my essay and, in an effort to conclude in the last ten minutes of the exam, I wrote that the way this story is told may be a critique of traditional ways of thinking and story-telling, but it may also be using postmodern ideas to make a critique of postmodern thinking, and that the author left that question unanswered. But now I think he does answer it.

After all, this kind of story can only work once, since it is a story-telling concept in itself. The author may be pointing people to more innovative ways of telling stories, but he is at the same time showing the problem with such a story. Though it is clever, its ending is unsatisfactory, especially for the main character, but in the movie version, the average viewer (which I was) is perplexed at the end. But why do we consider stories satisfactory or unsatisfactory? The need for closure is automatic in people, that is why it is a stock in any story, good or bad, and why only very smart people can enjoy something as dull and self-indulgent as Michael Haneke's “Caché”.

The character is seeking salvation, to pass some form of finish line. We are seeking to pass that too, why on earth would I be sitting here writing about metanarratives otherwise?!

I think one way of seeing this story is as a critique of the very period we're in now. The truth is, we can't live without a sense of purpose of global cohesion in our lives. The main character is trying to put fragments together and making sense of his life. I believe a lot of people today and generally speaking, Western society today are doing the same, but, just like the man with no memory, they have got a defective knowledge of their past. Actually, their distant past is more jumbled up and confused than their recent past, but like this man, in their imperfect knowledge, they choose what fragments to put together and therefore end up with a metanarrative which somehow grates against reality, not able to really encompass it.

The other aspect of the character is that he doesn't question his own actions anymore, his motivations, he is a victim and an avenger. The moral compass being broken as well as the plot, people choose to believe what they want and simply get used to living in the moment, doing whatever feels right in that moment. This leads to justifying basically any lifestyle, since if we accept that there are no metanarratives except for each person's personal story, there is no way to say this or that is right or wrong. This explains the utter stubbornness and violent resistance of people who are told they should not act in certain destructive ways. It is as if we had gone back to a childish state, where everyone's claiming their rights to various things but with no wisdom, no concept of transcendence or history, except for selective history.

I think this explains in part the fragmentation of society into various causes which have various metanarratives: feminists believe history is a battle against women's oppression by men, lgbt activists believe history is a battle against oppression and repression of sexuality, many racial groups are convinced that they have suffered more than others and see history as a battle against their oppressors. Each metanarrative places the individual as central to his story and being in the centre, with a perspective which has massive blind spots, they believe they are going towards their salvation, they telos (end).

But maybe something meaningful has already happened, though they are unable to perceive it because of their blinders. Maybe their enemy is the person they think is their friend, their methods and justifications are simply leading them into more error and the people they think are their enemies are in fact trying to help them.

So what's funny is that postmoderns say they don't believe in grand metanarratives such as the biblical one, but they keep constructing new ones, to give meaning to their lives. How else could you explain all the young people who think they are going to end world hunger and injustices by going to concerts and signing online petitions?

And in that sense, “Memento Mori” truly puts its finger on a very contemporary problem. None of the narrators, whether the notes the main character leaves to himself or even the 3^rd person voice which keeps saying “maybe, whatever”, and especially not the main character in his 10-minute slot of time, none of these people are reliable. He needs a benevolent person, who can see the full scope of his actions and of his life, to help him out of his cycle. He needs healing of his brain and of his heart. He needs a higher purpose than himself, a metanarrative that includes both the bad and the good, but that has an end that brings closure and peace... And so do we.

For there is an ultimate, undeniable truth: "Memento Mori"; remember, you're going to die.

To be continued, through comments, discussions, and maybe a follow-up post.