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False Memories In The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

Decent Essays

Memories play a big role in everyone’s lives. They shape us into who we are today. Memories also play a big role in memoirs. Are all of the events in memoirs true? In The Glass Castle, some of the events could not be completely true. Jeannette had many quotes that she “remembers” when she was at a young age. Childhood memories are hard to determine if they’re false or not since there are many factors that contribute to false memories. We all rely on memories because it makes us who we are today. The Glass Castle is not an accurate memoir, It is often thought that every part of a memoir is true. That is not the case. Walls has quotes that she somehow remembers from when she was just a toddler. For example, she remembered that her mom said “I am your mother, and I should have a say in how you're raised” after she found out the nurses were giving Jeannette gum at the age of three (Walls). It is highly unlikely for Jeannette to remember what her mom said word by word when she was only three years old. Some argue that Jeannette remembers this incident very well because of what she was put through. The …show more content…

Are all childhood memories true? Not all of them. There are many factors that contribute to false memories. One influence is siblings and even parents. If a brother or sister keeps telling their little sibling about an event, they would believe they were there, thus creating a false memory. Another influence is people talking too much. For example, Elizabeth Loftus, a cognitive psychologist, conducted an experiment by making people watch a video of a car crashing and when she asked the subjects if they saw the broken headlight, they “were more likely to remember seeing it, though it never existed” (Wilson). When people try to get information from others, they tend to assume and it makes people question their memory. Our brains work hard everyday and sometimes forms false memories that will last with us

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