Memory Wall

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death, suicidal ideation, and animal death.

Anthony Doerr has said of his writing that he strives “toward complexity, toward questions, and away from certainty, away from stereotype” (Mohar, Christopher. “Prayer, Inquiry, Memory: An Interview with Anthony Doerr.” Fiction Writers Review, 8 Mar. 2022). Fittingly, the themes in Memory Wall revolve around contemplation more than instruction. They pose questions rather than moral lessons. Together, the stories in this collection explore three central questions about memory: What does memory mean to humans?; how does memory shape the experience of loss?; and finally, what will be preserved from the inevitable ravages of time?

Doerr’s approach to the first question—what does memory mean to humans?—can be distilled into a more specific examination of how memories comprise the self. Alma’s battle with dementia in “Memory Wall” exemplifies the relationship between memory and selfhood. She has hundreds of cartridges containing her extracted memories, each representing one experience and one tiny part of the whole of her existence. Evidence of increasing chaos in the wall’s organization mirrors the erosion of self that occurs in Alma as her neural pathways break down, severing access to her memories.