Elie Wiesel Then And Now

Each individual in the world that is living at this moment has a past. For a select few of these individuals, the past has more longevity in comparison to others. Although many vary in the length of it, the kind of past is relevant for everyone. A person's past consists of different events and situations that all combine to create memories that live inside of their mind. Many of these memories created stay with a person for an extended period of time. For countless others, the memories become non-existent in a duration of time. Depending on how long the memory lasts within the mind as well as what the particular memories consist of, they all combine to create a personal self.
In Engel’s essay titled “Then and Now: Creating a Self Through
Individuals use the past in order to prove who they are to not only themselves but to those around them. Engel states, “We dig out, amplify, and create autobiographical material as a way to know and communicate who we are now”(193). As humans, we go way back and try to recreate and connect memories in order to figuratively write out our life as a whole. A person does this in order to understand themselves more fluently, but also as a way to show others who they are in a transparent way. This tool of diving deep into the past allows a person to have a better concept of who they are in the present based on how their past shaped out. Another key way in which a person gains a better concept of their self is the shift from a remembering self to a remembered self. Engel explains the first part of this equation to gaining a better self-concept when he says, “The remembering self is always a person in a specific situation, remembering for a particular reason”(196). The explanation of the remembering self-sets up why a person wants to get a remembered self. A person in the remembering self-stage must be exposed to a situation that reminds them of the past in order to recollect and connect with the
The team used to travel to tournaments far away and would stay in hotels. During these tournaments, we created many memories that will definitely last a lifetime. These memories, however, do not stick in the mind the same way for each player on the team. What I recall the most might be a great deal different from what someone else remembers. This ties in well with Engels claims that an individual is their own historian. Each person has different memories than then even their acquaintances. Even if the experience was the same for two individuals, the memory may be very different. This is what makes a person their own