A discussion on the importance of remembering slavery through literature and the subsequent consequences it can have.
This paper examines how memory, both the storing of it and its erasure, plays a pivotal role in eighteenth century slave narratives and in contemporary literary texts about slavery. It argues whether or not it is important to remember slavery and looks at issues such as history and genocide, trauma, identity and catharsis through storytelling. It focuses on both slave narratives and contemporary fiction about slavery and is based around Toni Morrison’s comment in Beloved that the story of slavery should not be passed on.
The structure of The Longest Memory helps to recreate the theme of trauma and recurring memory. It is cyclical and repetitive with a non-sequential plot; events are described repeatedly from the viewpoints of several different narrators, expressing the idea that memories repeat themselves again and again in the mind of the individual. The narrative is non-chronological and does not follow an organized structure, instead it jumps back and forth in time, describing events as they enter the mind of each narrator, in the same way as thoughts and memories assault the mind of the individual.