Hello, please help!

[crazybeautiful]

Hi, I'm new here and was wondering if anyone could help me at all? I need to write an essay on the importance of memory in 1984 and The Handmaids Tale. I have my ideas I'm just quite stressed and need help.
Thanks.

[The Atheist]

Hi, I'm new here and was wondering if anyone could help me at all? I need to write an essay on the importance of memory in 1984 and The Handmaids Tale. I have my ideas I'm just quite stressed and need help.
Thanks.

Well, I can't help you on The Handmaid's Tale, but I can give you a bit of a head start on 1984.

Winston's memories are of prime importance to the plot of 1984 - without them, Winston would have just been another Parsons; an Outer Party member who accepted everything he was told. Winston's memories are, to a large degree, his major unorthodoxy - his memory is different to the official history, including the following events:

The length of rule by The Party
Unpersons
The enemy
Food rationing

among others.

In all of those cases, it is only Winston's memory which cannot allow him to accept the converse position put forward by The Party.

[healthyalt]

Sure, Winston remembered things as they actually happened and not as Big Brother wanted eg: What is now has always been and Big Brother knows all so that must be true.

But, the interesting thing is, I think there were others (many in fact) who remembered things as they actually happened but, like Winston, weren't admitting it. This is where doublethink comes in. You have something happen in the past but now, in present, that 'something' never happened in the past and is replaced with a new occurrence, which has always been. Wow! I love the depth of that. It's like having two memmories and having to keep one in check until needed.