Memory is a confounding and complex thing, with its true nature still eluding us
to this day. A concise way to look at it is to consider it the relics of the past without its
physical presence still there, in other words ghosts of the past. However, unlike ghosts
who are stuck in the past and can’t move on, memories are there to help us move on, they
teach us about the past, the mistakes we and others around us made, and how to move
through life learning and not being the same person you were even a moment ago.
Memories are never the same either, even when about the same event, different
perspectives and ideas make everyone’s reality is a little different from each other’s,
seeing things through their eyes and remembering things through their own perspectives.
However, as perspectives change, the perspective in the memory is still the same, the
person in the memory doesn’t change in the memory. The people in the memory may
change in real life, but the memory is the same forever.
In Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake, the novel shifts perspectives between the
father, mother, eldest son, and a third-person viewpoint, each showing different ideas and
perspectives about the environment around them. As it shifts, you can see how each
person’s individual memories affects the way they think and act. The emotions they feel
and the actions they commit are concerning the memories they have had up until that
point, shaping them into the person who they have become.