The Image

Septimus was one of the first to volunteer. He went to France to save an England which consisted almost entirely of Shakespeare’s plays and Miss Isabel Pole in a green dress walking in a square. There in the trenches the change which Mr. Brewer desired when he advised football was produced instantly; he developed manliness; he was promoted; he drew the attention, indeed the affection of his officer, Evans by name. It was a case of two dogs playing on a hearth-rug; one worrying a paper screw, snarling, snapping, giving a pinch, now and then, at the old dog’s ear; the other lying somnolent, blinking at the fire, raising a paw, turning and growling good-temperedly. They had to be together, share with each other, fight with each other, quarrel with each other. But when Evans (Rezia who had only seen him once called him “a quiet man,” a sturdy red-haired man, undemonstrative in the company of women), when Evans was killed, just before the Armistice, in Italy, Septimus, far from showing any emotion or recognising that here was the end of a friendship, congratulated himself upon feeling very little and very reasonably. The War had taught him. It was sublime. He had gone through the whole show, friendship, European War, death, had won promotion, was still under thirty and was bound to survive. He was right there. The last shells missed him. He watched them explode with indifference. When peace came he was in Milan, billeted in the house of an innkeeper with a courtyard, flowers in tubs, little tables in the open, daughters making hats, and to Lucrezia, the younger daughter, he became engaged one evening when the panic was on him—that he could not feel.

 

This image is one that is an integral part of our everyday lives. This is how our personal information, emails, texts, calls, photos, videos etc. are stored. These tiny pieces of plastic and metal hold some of the most important things in our lives. The memory is stored in tiny particles of plastic. They are then transmitted through the tiny wires; they spark and fly in the miniscule tubes. I thought this was a fitting picture to parallel to Septimus’ madness. All the memories of war and Evans are stored in his mind constantly being transmitted to his imagination. These memories surround and drive every thought that Septimus feels. He physically feels these memories, like touching physical memory, which ultimately drives him mad. The black rectangles are his memories, and the thousands of wires constantly flow burdens to his mind. Was there a way for him to forget the implications of the war? Memory we are surrounded by on our devices are easily, or more easily, destructible. Sure, we now have the cloud, but before information gets to the cloud. The memory in the picture can be saturated with liquid which is enough to render it obsolete. The memories are then gone forever. Was there a way for Septimus to destroy the painful memories without destroying himself? I would say no, or he would’ve done it. For him, the only way to forget of this person that accompanied him during the hardest part of his life was to fall victim to death. So now the question is, can our memories be a victim of death? Well, our memories are now automatically uploaded to a phantom in the sky, the cloud. A place that is untouchable yet so readily available. One may think these memories stored in the cloud can never be destroyed without intention. However, even the cloud, a phantom, comes from physical servers. For example, Apple’s iCloud servers are located in North Carolina. The memories of millions of people can be destroyed in one swipe. We do have our limbic system, but it is not forever. As we get older we lose our memories. After death, they’re gone. However, we cannot erase the ones that remain throughout our lives. For Septimus, he could not expunge his memories; memories also can’t be preserved eternally, even if we have the cloud.