False Memory and Psychological Depth in Summer Rain

Zainab Khudhair Abbas The Trap of False Memory in Al-Zadie s Summer Rain

Ali Abdel-Nabi Al-Zaidi is an Iraqi writer. He has written many great plays, including Summer Rain, which mainly talks about the political system in Iraq, but there is a psychological depth in its main character that is worthy to be noticed. In the play, there is one woman who has lost her husband, and instead of moving on, she was waiting for him for over 20 years, and her solution was to ask scientists to make a clone of him. Instead of receiving a clone of her husband, she received three clones, and she wasn t relieved. Even after reunited with her fake husband, she wanted her real one Ali Abdel-Nabi Al-Zaidi

False Memory False memory refers to cases in which people remember events differently from the way they happened or, in the most dramatic case, remember events that never happened at all.

In the play, we noticed that the setting consists of two rooms and one balcony, which, in a way or another, we can consider as the woman s brain that consists of the right and left hemispheres. The left is responsible for language logic, analytic verbal activities, while the right is responsible for imagination, creativity, and emotions.

Michael Gazzaniga: Hemispheric Specialization The left hemisphere often acts as an interpreter, constructing coherent narratives, especially when information is incomplete. Left hemisphere tends to fill in gaps in memory, even with inaccurate information, to make sense of experiences. The left hemisphere could create logical, if inaccurate, explanations. Daniel Schacter: Memory Reconstruction Fill in gaps Daniel Schacter, a cognitive psychologist, the brain often fills in gaps using existing knowledge, expectations, and emotions. Describe how memory errors, like bias and suggestibility, contribute to false memories. He proposed that these errors occur because our brain reconstructs memories rather than simply retrieving them. Elizabeth Loftus: Suggestibility suggestive information can lead the brain to fill in gaps in memory. The brain constructs memories based on available cues, which can be incomplete or misleading. This hemispheric balance between reconstructing meaning and filling in sensory details contributes to the difficulty in distinguishing true memories from false ones. The interplay can lead to rich but inaccurate recollections, showing how both hemispheres are vital in shaping our memory experiences sometimes inaccurately.

I told them about my husbands personality and physical features, as they requested. I gave them a copy of your picture hanging there. I told them a lot about you. So they created a copy of my absent husband When the first clone asks her Why do you insist in believing that I m the clone? She replies Because something that s real can t survive in a fake world. Many things have changed here. But they woman replies by Many things? Everything. GET OUT! ALL OF YOU! GET OUT OF MY HOUSE, NOW! My heart no longer needs you, clones! My soul no longer needs your words, memories, dreams, lies, I was waiting for the truth. Only the truth! I will be waiting for it here, alone, alone, alone! (Shouting.) It will come! Truth must come one day. As for you, all of you have to leave my house right now. Leave . . . leave . . . leave.

Perfume Memory and nostalgia identity and presence sensuality and desire deception and illusion

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