The Law of Historical Memory
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2017-01
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MFA in Creative Nonfiction
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This work is restricted until 2032. No access will be permitted until the embargo has expired. Once the embargo expires the work is available only on Goucher College's campus.
Abstract
Experimenting with various shifts of narrative address, The Law of Historical Memory is a memoir in four parts that examines the fragmentation of my selfhood and my family relationships. I reflect upon the past through the lens of my post-cancer period of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as, during that period, the new, healthier relationship I had developed with my body incurred a greater sense of its communicative abilities. I discovered that my body held memories I could not see but feared greatly—so much so that I feared dying more after cancer. When I discovered that my adolescent journals revealed repressed experiences, every false conception I had of myself and of my family was shattered. Ultimately, by uncovering the truth, I healed
as an integrated self. This thesis represents excerpts from Part 3: The Kitchen Sink and Part 4: The Pact of Forgetting.