The Fiftieth Gate Essay Example for Free

The Fiftieth Gate EssayThe interplay between floor and retentiveness is a solipsistic act, where invoice inevitably relies on memory to maintain its vitality whereas memory relies on history to sustain its immortality. Throughout Mark bread makers polyphonous non-fiction memoir, The Fiftieth Gate and the typewriter ribbon like idea of the images below, memory is depicted as the panacea that enriches history as it provides diverse individual perspectives on the historical event of the holocaust. However, the biography overly adduces the complications that memory might suffer, thereby revealing the inadequate omniscience of history. bread maker envisages the conception of interweaving memories on elucidating historical evidence. In Gate 38, the fairy tale quality of this entry symbolises how memory can join with historical evidence to provide a more profound range of information. When Baker recites his dream to Genia, he uses the metaphor of a river of wine that has turned to blood representing the connection between an individuals memory , in this case Bakers memory of his childhood story, and dilate history of the Holocaust which the adult historian, Baker, had obviously studied.However, Genia recognised Bakers dream as a childhood story book with a dissimilar ending. This representation demonstrates both how individual memories validate each other and how history is revealed through its interplay with memory. Baker further explores how memory provokes and vindicates history in his non-fiction biography. Typical of the safe and sound memoir, gate 39 constitutes a multifarious types of textual forms portraying the ambiguity of history and its inability in unfolding the pasts conundrums without the aid of memory.Baker delineates this notion by examining the prewar historical document, his most treasured photograph of his family taken in 1946 stating that althoughThe photograph transcends time. There is nothing to suggest it is 1946 ergo illustrating the resister history faces in reaching the absolute truth. Moreover, Baker depicts using rhetorical questions what the historical document failed to answer, Does not the photographer know that in two months my nans smile will be erased forever ? Whereas the impact of incident on his mothers memory it was a holiday because I commend putting on my best dress deliberately evokes the clarity of particular memories in supplying the answers. Thus, the limitations of history are revealed by delving into ones memory, as memory provides a more complete portrait of a historical event. On the other hand, despite memorys contiguous interconnection with history in being its nurturing essence, yet it endures multifaceted intricacies which hinder history from absolute truth.This duality of memory is represented by the binary of Genias personality I am your victim , not your oppressor. Baker depicts the extremes of Genias personality, between depression and exhilaration through ellipsis, That w as me then. Nothing to look at nownothing to matchruins and in her inversion of cause and effect about her original period of depression I remember now. The breakdown, it was because of you. This dual nature of ones memory provokes memorys bewilderment, hence revealing the imperfection of history.Additionally, memorys failure in passing the test of athanasia manipulates the inadequate omniscience of history. Gate 41 recounts Bakers attempt to find Benjamin Kogut, a survivor who saved Yossel , Bakers father, as a means of enhancing historical evidence by the inclusion of Koguts memory. Baker uses recount about The Search Bureau for Missing Relatives in Jerusalem to show how historical evidence is sifted. Ultimately, Bakers discovery of a Kogut family members Tel Aviv telephone number reveals that Kogut has died leaving one single photograph from after the liberation, but no memories.Bakers metaphor of peering into memorys black hole conveys the tendency of memory to be lost thus r elinquishing the concept of absolute truth duration revealing history to be only a partial representation of collective memory. In retrospect, the reader sees memory acting as an anecdote since it assists history but fails to achieve historys absolute truth. This notion is akin to Sir Winston Churchills ideology which depicts that History is written by victors as a means of demonstrating the interplay of memory and history where the prejudice of collective memory restrains the candidness of history.