The Past Tense

          They lied: hindsight is never 20/20. See, personal subjectivity always has a way of invading our memories to taint our recollections, and even if it doesn’t, our understanding of events and persons can never truly be perfect – there will always be things beyond our understanding either because we lack the necessary information or would simply prefer  to remember things our own way. Therefore, to assume that you can comprehend your personal history or the history of your world based on hindsight alone is a fallacy. What, after all, is more horrifying or ironic than an event from your past or an occurrence from public history that you thought you understood perfectly, but upon fresh knowledge discover you hardly knew at all? Flannery O’Connor understands this concept just fine, displaying the complexities of personal and public memory in several of her works, particularly Wise Blood and The Artificial Nigger.

           Take A Late Encounter with the Enemy, for example. The first example is the ancient General Sash, who consistently fails to accurately appreciate what happened at the movie premiere because he prefers to see himself surrounded by his conception of Hollywood girls. He doesn’t even remember what role he played in the Civil War, instead choosing to remember the movie premiere where he pridefully received the plush General’s uniform. This habit of inconsistency is passed down to his daughter as well, as her memories of who her father actually conflict with what role she perceives he should inhabit. To her he is a symbol of a bygone age of dignity and honor, when in reality his sense of traditional morality is as decrepit as his bones. Then there’s Hollywood and the government, whom romanticize General Sash’s role in the war as a means of placing the Confederate Army in some national mythology rather than understand them for they actually were. They have an idea of what the Confederate soldiers were like and so they feed the public that image through films and presentations such as the one that the General appeared in. I’m still not sure where to draw the line between intentional and unintentional subjectivity, but it’s something I’ll have to discover afresh – if I ever knew, I obviously can’t remember anymore.