First off, I just wanted to say that Memento has the single most mindfucking ending I've ever seen. From what I understood, Leonard's wife survived the attack and he mixed up the story between Sammy Jankis and himself. He then added the imaginary feature that it was the initial attack that killed her, to make the story more simple. Right? Correct me if I'm wrong because I'm still confused.
Leonoard is subconsciously in denial; he doesn't really want to know the truth. Like Teddy says to him at the end of the movie, "You don't want the truth. You make up your own truths." He needs this lie (i.e. his wife died from the attack) so that his life can continue and have purpose. I find it very interesting that a lot of the times we make up stuff and lie to ourselves because the alternative, reality, is just too depressing to fathom.
In The Man in the High Castle, Philp K. Dick's characters do the exact same thing: they create this alternate reality in which the Allies lost World War II. Another similarity MTHC and Memento have is their characters' reaction to the revelation of truth. When the characters realize that they are living a lie, they go into panic mode. In Memento when Lennie discovers that he was already killed the real John G a year ago, he makes the conscious decision to kill Teddy and set him up as John G. He does this because Teddy is a representation of the truth, and that doesn't fit with the story he plays in his head. He clearly does not want to know the truth. In MTHC, Tagomi has a meltdown after he discovers that his reality is actually a lie.
We discussed in class once that reality is the problem and people need to create a separate world from the the truth to find a solution. But is reality that bad? I feel like inevitably discovering the truth is a worse than reality could ever be. I guess I'm just wondering why we continue to do this to ourselves? Why is it so hard to accept the truth? Why do we always wish to "live in a dream" as Teddy says? So many questions!
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