Relationship Between Family, Memory, and Identity Social Essay (Essay Sample)

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Relationship Between Family, Memory, and Identity
There is a close relationship between family, memory, and identity. Family and parents influence the lives of children in various ways. For instance, adolescents who relate well with their parents look to them for guidance in identity development. Family offers a basis for a person's identity by cultivating and transferring it across generations. Family also nurtures collective memory, which links an individual's family to his identity. This paper discusses the three concepts of family, memory, and identity, and determines the interconnection among them.
Memory is an essential tool used to create and maintain the identity of an individual or a family. There are various types of memory (Simone and Leal 57). Close memory is a type of memory that deals with a person's day to day life activities and everything that happens in the present. Deeper memory is connected to various important events and therefore, are kept in mind for an extended period (Simone and Leal 57). Social memory deals with the history of a defined group of people, such as a particular tribe or nation. Individual memory relates to the history of a family or an individual.
An individual can use memory to relate to some events that happened in their life or their family in the past. In the essay "The Way to Rainy Mountain" by N. Scott Momaday, the concept of family, memory, and identity is brought out (Gale 13). Momaday talks about his grandmother even after her death (Gale 13). He brings back memories of the beautiful stories that her grandmother shared and how she related to nature (Gale 13). These memories make Momaday decide to start on a similar journey to the migration of his ancestors. He does this to honor his grandmother. Some events are not pleasant to remember. Memories depend on the needs of everything that happens in the present. Memories are not ready-made reflections (Gale 13). They are a series of selective reconstructions that can either be remembered or forgotten.
An individual's identity depends on a series of necessary conditions that should be accomplished in a certain period. Personal identity cannot take place in some aspects of memory, and therefore they both have an interrelationship. Memory plays a critical role in the identity of a person. Memories are either long term or short term. The long-term memory is responsible for revealing the true identity of a person. Long term memory can either be implicit or explicit. Implicit memories do not have any actual value about a particular thing. They include any skills that are commonly acquired and even some regular habits. Explicit memories have a real value and can, therefore, be proved as true or false. They include memories about some facts and particular events that took place in the past.
All these memories bring out a person's clear identity as portrayed in the essay "Once More to the Lake" by E. B White. White has a reflection about his childhood, where his father always took him to the lake (White 102). He takes his son to the same lake. White cannot distinguish himself from his son and therefore suffers an identity crisis. However, he later realizes that his son is becoming mature, which is a sign of his imminent death. He accepts it is no longer in the image of his son. It is evident that some memories act as an aid to finding a person's true self (White 102). People should always embrace such memories in any case.