Module C essay

Good morning/afternoon, my name is Mark Baker, and today, I’d like to share with you my understanding as both a composer and responder, not only of history and memory, but their representation, and the plethora of challenges this presents. As demonstrated in my own work The Fiftieth Gate, in Margaret Atwood’s novel The Blind Assassin, and in Michael Gondry’s film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, representing history and memory is a process beset by the inherent bias of the composer’s purpose, the provocation of multiple ethical dilemmas, and the ultimately inadequate nature of these two divergent yet intrinsically linked ways of understanding the past.

Perhaps the most immediate challenge involved in representing history and memory is that of the composer’s innately subjective purpose. Fundamentally shaping the meaning of a text through deliberate choices in form, selectivity, and style; the writer’s underlying aims challenge us to question the reliability of a representation and its relationship with objectivity. In The Fiftieth Gate, the problematic nature of purpose is saliently exemplified through the examination of Hermann Müller’s testimony in Gate Nineteen. This declaration is characterized by a strong tone of remorse, yet it’s juxtaposition against an accumulation of emotive images (“a child left lying helplessly”) and other eye-witness accounts positions readers to perceive such guilt as a product more of self-preservation than genuine sentiment. In one sense, we are shown that Müller’s representation of history and memory is shaped by a desire to establish his innocence. However, attentive readers will soon recognize that such a reading of the text is in fact contrived, an intentional product of my own subjective purpose: to generate sympathy for Müller’s victims rather than for Müller himself.