Memory And Imagination By Patricia Hampl Analysis

One can rearrange pieces of their memory, both good and bad, and make their past into what they want others to understand and believe about themselves. One can also use past memories to reflect who they are today. Patricia Hampl, an American memoirist and poet, wrote an article titled “Memory and Imagination,” in which she recalls her first piano lesson. In her recollection, she soon discovers that the way she believed things had happened and the way she explained them may not have actually been the way they occurred. Barbara Mellix, who holds a masters of fine arts in creative writing and also taught composition at the University of Pittsburgh, wrote an article titled “From Outside In,” in which she also explains to her readers how her …show more content…
Most normal human beings cannot recall every aspect of everything that has ever occurred in their lifetime, so even if they say something is completely accurate that may not always be correct. Some things from two completely different stories may occasionally become intertwined. Therefore, people must simply pick the best story that they believe will better shape who they will become in their schooling, their lifestyle, and their future in general with the ideas that work best for them. In the beginning of Hampl’s essay, she informs her readers of a past memory from when she was seven years old. Hampl explains her first time going to her piano lessons: “My father gave me over to Sister Olive Marie, who did look remarkably like an olive.[… During my lesson,] I was given a red book, the first Thompson book[…] but at that moment, Mary Katherine Reilly was at my side […] I nodded, I acquiesced, I was hers” (21-24). After telling her readers this story, Hampl soon recalls almost everything she told us she was not sure if she had made it up or if it were actually the truth. This tends to happen to many people. People simply forget details about stories that have created them into the people they are today or they …show more content…
All mistakes, accomplishments, influences, failures, and every little thing that people have set their eyes on has a collective impact on people. Big or small, it has occurred in one way or another. People say that they wish they could change certain aspects of their past. Maybe they wish they could change mistakes they have made. Maybe they wish they could erase people they have met. Maybe the wish they could pretend they never failed at something. However, any combinations of these things do not make anyone into the person whom they have become. Mistakes make a person who they are because they will learn something from a mistake and take away a key concept. These learning experiences will hopefully cause people to make better decisions in their futures. We make mistakes both on purpose and on accident, not to hurt us, but to help us and to shape us to become a better, more desirable person. Mistakes can help people discover true identities about themselves, and unmask characteristics about themselves that they have never considered. If one never made any mistakes, where could one say they are in life? What would this mean for them? Is a person really even human if they do not make mistakes? Hampl notes some mistakes she had made. In the multiple instances where she tried to relearn ‘C’ because she would look away for