Essay \"Traumatic Memory in Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind and the ‘Fraud’ Poetry of Araki Yasusadathis PDF

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Traumatic memory in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and the ‘Fraud’ poetry of Araki Yasusada

This final 3000 word essay deals with the idea of memory and trauma in the two texts in the title. The focus of the essay is on Araki Yasusada, who is a topic of the course....

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Traumatic memory in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and the ‘Fraud’ poetry of Araki Yasusada

Christopher Grau, in his essay on memory in ‘Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind’ asserts that traumatic memories ‘allow us to learn valuable lessons from the past and thus be better prepared for the future’1. In doing so, Grau presents us with the heart of the film ‘Eternal Sunshine’ and the poetry of Araki Yasusada, particularly from his collection ‘Doubled Flowering’. The trauma that is present in the texts, while a complicated emotional experience for both the reader and characters, is largely relied upon to present the key theme of championing the use of traumatic memory rather than avoiding it. However, ‘Eternal Sunshine’ and ‘Doubled Flowering’ arrive at this message in contrasting ways. ‘Eternal Sunshine’ deals with the deletion of memory and presents audiences with the question of whether, given the opportunity, we should remove bad memories and thus live an entirely positive and trouble-free life. Director Michael Gondry crafts the film as such to demonstrate the importance of remembrance and how the deletion of memory ultimately results in a negative and repetitive outcome. Yasusada, on the other hand, is a fraud poet, allegedly a creation by Kent Johnson. As such, in opposition to ‘Eternal Sunshine’, ‘Doubled Flowering’ uses the creation, rather than the deletion of memory to demonstrate the importance traumatic memory as a way of avoiding historical repetition. Thus, both ‘Eternal Sunshine’ and Yasusada’s poetry support the importance of traumatic memory as a ‘valuable lesson’ and as a way of avoiding repetition of the same mistakes in the future. Critics are swift to take apart Johnson for the creation of Yasusada. Eric R.J. Hayot approaches this phenomenon, stating often that his creation is viewed as a ‘facile manipulation of an American tendency to like its others exocticized’2 and conceding that its ‘theoretical support has always been

1 Christopher Grau, ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and the Morality of Memory’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 64.1 Special Issue: Thinking through Cinema: Film as Philosophy (2006), < http://www.jstor.org.eresources.shef.ac.uk/stable/pdf/3700497.pdf> (p. 120-121 para. 9) 2 Eric R.J. Hayot, ‘The Stange Case of Araki Yasusada: Author, Object’, PMLA, 120.1 (2005) [16/4/2016] (p. 67)

shaky’3. However, the creation of Yasusada is in fact beneficial to the exploration of traumatic memory. In his writings on the function of the author, Foucault states that it is the author’s job to be ‘characteristic of the mode of existence […] and operation of certain discourses within a society’ 4. This is far more applicable to the creation of Yasusada than him simply being an example of an ‘exoticized other’. It is just as relevant to suggest that Johnson’s creation of Yasusada reflects the themes that are present in the poetry itself. His construction of Yasusada’s wife and daughters being killed in the Hiroshima atomic bomb is demonstrative of the idea that traumatic memory is a method of remembrance of past tragedy. Hayot also explores this, describing the sentiment behind the creation of Yasusada as indicative of a ‘present framed by its desire to remember and memorialize that past’5. In the case of Yasusada, this is true. The construction of memories that are rooted in such a traumatic time in human history suggests that Johnson intended to demonstrate the importance of memorial so as to avoid historical repetition. In his work on cinema and national identity, David Martin-Jones agrees, stating that by ‘not comprehending cultural trauma people are destined to repeat it’6, further reinforcing the idea that the construct of Yasusada is a force of cultural remembrance. Thus, rather than simply being a cultural appropriation as he is too often considered, Yasusada is in reality a demonstration of the importance of cultural trauma as a method of remembrance and prevention of historical repetition. Initially, it is clear that ‘Eternal Sunshine’ is vehemently against the destruction of memory through the depiction of its consequences. However, unlike Yasusada’s work which deals largely in cultural trauma, ‘Eternal Sunshine’ demonstrates the importance of traumatic memory through personal trauma. During the memory deletion process, Joel experiences a series of unsettling nightmarish scenes that take place in various locations visited during his time in the waking world, a key example being the scene in the ‘Lacuna’ office. In his first visit to the ‘Lacuna’ offices, Joel experiences trauma 3 Hayot, p. 67 4 Michel Foucault, ‘Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology’, James D. Faubion, 1.2 (New York: The New Press, 1998) pp. 205 - 222 5 Hayot, p. 70 6 David Martin-Jones, Deleuze, Cinema and National Identity (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Ltd, 2006) p. 173

in the form of deleting his memories of Clem. In the resulting nightmare he revisits the same trauma, though now the memory is repressed: faces in the nightmare are blurred, resulting in the monstrous bastardisations of their real counterparts. The faceless nightmares also fail to talk in a decipherable language, instead vocalising themselves with muffled attempts at words and sentences. Gondry is representing repressed trauma through these unidentifiable figures, and through Joel’s negative reaction to them, is highlighting the distressing nature of memory deletion. This scene is indicative of the theme of the film as a whole. The nightmares of Joel’s mind, though forgotten when he wakes, are still nightmares none the less and unsettling for watching audiences. Unlike Joel, audiences have the advantage of being able to remember what Joel has forgotten from his dream and can realise that the process of memory removal is nightmarish. In this scene in particular, traumatic memories are demonstrated to be essential in that when we remember what is disturbing to us, we will avoid repetition. Through the demonstration of the negative outcome of memory erasure, as is the case in ‘Eternal Sunshine’, it is made clear that the ability to recall traumatic memory is fundamental to avoiding the repetition of mistakes. As such, Grau’s assertions are reinforced here, traumatic memories are ‘lessons’ and should not be forgotten. The poetry of Yasusada agrees with the sentiments being presented in ‘Eternal Sunshine’, but constructs them in a different way. ‘Mad Daughter and Big-Bang’ presents readers with a scene in which a father finds his daughter’s head in a field, has a short conversation with it and, it turning out to be a turnip, pulls it out of the ground. Initially, this construction is vividly grotesque in its violence. A father is forced to view his daughter’s disembodied head on the ground following her death during the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. The situation being presented is a terrible event and disconcerting for the readership. However, Yasusada ensures that the image of his daughters head in the ground is not ultimately a negative one. The tone of the poem shifts in the third stanza from the morose opening, moving to describe the daughter ‘haloed with light’ 7, alluding to the daughter being angelic and

7 Araki Yasusada, ‘Mad Daughter and Big Bang’, in Doubled Flowering: From the Notebooks of Araki Yasusada, Kent Johnson, Mikhail Epstein and Jack Spicer, 1.1 (New York: Roof Books, 1997) p. 45 ln. 7

heavenly. The daughter is also described with ‘dark hair, comet-like, trailing behind…’ 8, with the ellipses closing the line inferring a sense of wistfulness and beauty. ‘Comet-like’ also references how the daughter is powerfully natural and links her with the stars, which adds to the heavenly sense of her description. Yasusada’s rejection of the negativity surrounding the description of his daughter demonstrates the wider feelings towards memory in the poem as a whole. Though the death of his daughter is certainly traumatic, he would much rather remember he had a daughter suffer her loss, than not remember having a daughter at all. Grau addresses this, stating ‘our concern for knowing the truth comes into contention with our desire for happiness’ 9, which is apt in this case. Yasusada would rather remember traumatic memory than have it deleted, exactly as Joel and Clementine in ‘Eternal Sunshine’ come to realise as well. Furthermore, within Yasusada’s poetry the sentiment of avoiding historical repetition is made clear in ‘High Altitude Photo of Hiroshima (circa 1944)’. The opening stanza draws allusions to the cities in Germany and how a young girl ‘must be… stuttering, almost weeping’ 10 to remember them. Readers are immediately reminded of the city of Dresden which, like Hiroshima, was demolished in the name of the allied war effort. The fact the girl is ‘weeping’ over the memory of them is further indication that the poem is about memorializing what has been lost. The emphasis on the phrase ‘of our ally’ 11 through the use of a line break and a comma reinforces the positive nature of the memories being recalled, as though Yasusada is drawing a picture of a valuable past that has been destroyed by war. Interestingly, in the fourth stanza, the speaker begins to question himself and where they are. This uncertainty reflects the wider purpose of the poem: to convey the importance of traumatic memory as a way of avoiding historical repetition. The speaker knows he is not important in the grand scheme of the world, ‘somewhere in the upper left’ 12 being indicative of this, but fact he is referencing back to before these cultural tragedies – the bombing of Dresden and the destruction of Hiroshima – 8 ‘Mad Daughter and Big-Bang’, ln. 13 9 Grau, p. 123 10 Araki Yasusada, ‘High Altitude Photo of Hiroshima (circa 1944)’, in Doubled Flowering: From the Notebooks of Araki Yasusada, Kent Johnson, Mikhail Epstein and Jack Spicer, 1.1 (New York: Roof Books, 1997) ln. 1-2 11 ‘High Altitude Photo of Hiroshima (circa 1944)’, ln. 3 12 ‘High Altitude Photo of Hiroshima (circa 1944)’, ln. 7

demonstrates to the reader that the delivery of ideas is less important, it is the idea itself that matters. Traumatic memory in Yasusada’s poetry, and the creation of Yasusada himself, shows that his purpose is to avoid further cultural trauma by reminding readers of previous historical tragedies that have occurred. In ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’, Mary offers the consequence of ignoring traumatic memory. Martin-Jones states that Mary is deployed to show the ‘wrong way of coping with trauma’ 13 and when looking at her place in the larger film, his assertion is undeniable. Throughout the text, Mary acts as the contrast to Yasusada, in that she truly believes in the deletion of memory as a good thing. She states that any person that goes through the procedure comes out like a ‘baby’, ‘so pure and clean’14, without the hindrances of having any negative memories. Of course, Mary’s belief in the positive nature of the memory deletion procedure is unpicked during the film. Whereas she quotes Nietzche’s ‘Beyond Good and Evil’ in the opening of the film with ‘blessed are the forgetful for they get the better of even their blunders’ 15, it is revealed that she herself is a victim of the memory deletion procedure and, because of this, repeats exactly the action that made her inflict that destruction upon herself in the first place, kissing Dr. Mierzwiak. In doing so, she solidifies the message behind the film regarding traumatic memory and proves Martin-Jones’ assertions correct: ‘without knowledge of the past people are doomed to repeat it as unthinking automatons’ 16. Mary is an example of the ‘wrong’ way to deal with trauma, in that she represents the consequence of ignoring traumatic memory: repetition. Further emphasis on Martin-Jones’ sentiment is found in the final, closing image of the film. Joel and Clem are seen walking down the beach of their first meeting in Montauk after deciding to give their relationship another chance. Beck’s ‘Everybody’s got to learn sometime’ is heard as the soundtrack while the image of Joel and Clem playing in the snow repeats over and over again, fading into white. 13 Martin-Jones, p. 179 14 Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind. Dir. Michael Gondry. Focus Film, 2004. 15 Friedrick Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Rolf-Peter Horstmann and Judith Norman, 1.1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) 16 Martin-Jones, p.179

Clearly, the audience is being shown that the consequence of deleting traumatic memory is that people will repeat that trauma over and over again ‘like unthinking automatons’, as Martin-Jones suggests. The use of ‘Everybody’s got to learn sometime’ seems on the surface to contrast this idea, given that it suggests everyone’s inevitable eventual learning, but when used in conjunction with the repeated loop of images being played on screen, the song takes an ironic turn. ‘Change your heart’ is the opening line, inferring that neither Joel nor Clem ultimately change their heart and are doomed to repetition because they are denied the opportunity to remember and, as Grau states, ‘learn’ from traumatic memory. While both texts offer the remembrance of traumatic memory as a way of avoiding both cultural and personal repetition of mistakes, they also offer traumatic memory as an effective frame for positive memory. This is seen most clearly in Yasusada’s ‘Loon and Dome’. Clearly, the memory that is being presented in the poem is a difficult one. The opening morose tone of the poem is emphasised to readers through phrases like ‘crying girl’17 and ‘mournful sound’18, removing any doubt that the poem is not a positive one. Clearly, Yasusada struggles with recalling this memory. However, Yasusada, like in the case of ‘Mad Daughter’, moves the tone of the poem to something more positive and nostalgic, carefully ensuring that the traumatic memory is presented in no uncertain terms as a positive thing. Here Russel Kilbourn’s work becomes useful. He argues that ‘what counts is […] how one remembers; what is desired is the experience of recollecting the past as much as the past in itself’19. Kilbourn’s assertion that the ‘experience’ of the past is just as important as the memory itself fits well into the sentiments of Yasusada’s poem. Though the memory of learning of the pregnancy of his dead wife is traumatic, Yasusada demonstrates that it is more important to remember this traumatic memory than it is to evade it. In this way, it is clear that within traumatic memory, more positive memories become framed. 17 Araki Yasusada, ‘Loon and Dome’, in Doubled Flowering: From the Notebooks of Araki Yasusada, Kent Johnson, Mikhail Epstein and Jack Spicer, 1.1 (New York: Roof Books, 1997) ln. 1 18 ‘Loon and Dome’, ln 2 19 Russel J.A. Kilbourn, Cinema, Memory, Modernity: The Representation of Memory from the Art Film to Transnational Cinema, (New York: Routledge, 2013) p. 132

The fact that this memory is a fabrication by Johnson further enhances the sentiments that the poem is creating. Johnson’s creation of traumatic memory is in itself the frame for the message that he is intending to portray regarding the importance of traumatic memory as a method of avoiding cultural repetition. Without Yasusada’s creation, Johnson would not have been able to convey the importance of traumatic memory, just as the traumatic memory that Yasusada remembers frames the positive memory of his wife becoming pregnant. It is a complex structure of meaning in which Johnson deals with both personal memory, the memory of Yasusada, and cultural memory, in which he presents his message of the importance traumatic memory. Complex narrative structures are also present in ‘Eternal Sunshine’, and they too reflect the ideas that the film is intending to present. Again Kilbourn’s work here is exceptionally relevant. He states that ‘Eternal Sunshine’ is ‘structured according to logical repetition: the compulsive repetition to return to the past within or overlapping the present’ 20. The narrative structure of ‘Eternal Sunshine’ is, for the first time viewer, confusing. The film starts at the end with the pre credits scene, with the post credits scene being the chronological start of the film. Kilbourn’s use of the word ‘overlapping’ is interesting here, as clearly the timeline in the film is not in chronological order, choosing instead to ‘overlap’ its sequences. This reflects the repetitive nature of the film, as Clem and Joel are inferred to be consistently reliving the events leading up to their break up over and over again, thus again reinforcing Martin-Jones’ beliefs in autonomous repetition without traumatic memory. ‘Compulsive repetition’ is also interesting in Kilbourn’s work, as it suggests that we are naturally drawn to make the same mistakes repeatedly if we do not learn not to. This is reflected ostensibly in the film, with the repetitive finale shot and the overlapping nature of the narrative structure. It is also reinforced through the journey of Clem in the text. After she deletes her memories of Joel, she immediately becomes attracted to Patrick (Elijah Wood) who emulates the actions that Joel used when he first met her. ‘Although memories of the past have been eradicated’, Steven Rawle writes on his work about ‘Eternal Sunshine’, ‘the characters that undergo the memory deletion process are still 20 Kilbourn, p. 132

prone to repeat past behaviours’ 21. Rawle’s assertions are seen extensively in the film, with Joel and Clem being committed to continue repeating their broken relationship over and over again. Rawle does however move to offer an explanation of this, stating that ‘the eradication of memory is a failure in this sense, a repression… rather than a deletion’22. Rawle, through this statement is agreeing with both Martin-Jones and Grau, reinforcing the fact that ‘Eternal Sunshine’ is indeed a message against the destruction of traumatic memory. Rawle’s use of ‘repression’ allows further condemnation of the deletion of memory, as it alludes back to mental instability. The repression of traumatic memory, of course, is very bad for mental health. Both texts, then, very clearly promote traumatic memory. Though such memory can be difficult, both Gondry with ‘Eternal Sunshine’ and the Johnson with Yasusada demonstrate that trauma is an important part of both cultural and personal memory. Furthermore, critics of the texts agree with the sentiments are being presented. Grau’s assertions, on which this essay was based, that traumatic memories ‘allow us to learn lessons from the past’ is made clear through the criticism of memory deletion in ‘Eternal Sunshine’ and through the creation of Yasusada as a poetic tool. Martin-Jones’ arguments surrounding trauma memory stem from Grau’s work and his statement that ‘by not comprehending past trauma people are destined to repeat it’ 23, demonstrates clearly that not only do traumatic memories teach us, they are imperative to our avoiding of past mistakes. Finally, Rawle’s arguments build on both Grau’s and Martin-Jones’ work and outline the sentiments that both texts intend to represent: by not remembering trauma, we are repressing it and such repression leads to unconscious repetition, both on a cultural and personal scale. Johnson’s and Gondry’s texts, then, both represent how we should address and embrace traumatic memory and use it as an enhancement to our lives.

21 Rawle, Steven, ‘Reconstructing the Past: Visual Virtuality in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ in Millenial Cinema: Memory in Global Film ed. By Amresh Sinha, Terence McSweeney (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012) (pp. 37-52) p. 42 22 Rawle, p. 43 23 Martin-Jones, p. 173

‘How happy is the blameless Vestal’s lot!’, as Alexander Pope writes and Mary recites, ‘the world forgetting by the world forgot / Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind’ 24. Mary’s mind may be spotless, but it is only because of a thin veneer of happiness painted over by the repression of trauma. The deletion of memory does not lead to a ‘spotless mind’, as Gondry shows, and a ‘world forgetting’ does not lead to a ‘world forgot’ as Johnson shows. Traumatic memory must be remembered, each text demonstrates, because the losing it is far worse than recalling it.