Your Weekly Dose of Sawyer

After reading Nathan Nolan's short story, "Memento Mori", it got me thinking about how memory is what we use to explain almost everything we do. Consequently, that us humans really take our memory for granted. Memory is a peculiar concept and is also quite personal. Memory isn't only good for remembering things from the past but is also what we use everyday for things as simple as motivation. With this in mind, this short story truly emphasizes on the importance of memory and how under appreciated our memory is. This man is stuck living in one lonely room for the rest of his life and through his "ten-minute life", Nolan displays how unproductive humans are with the lives they are given. Just like Earl, we too seem to repeat the same cycle day after day. Our memory allows us to remember what we do and ultimately prevents us from doing repeating mistakes or unfavorable actions from the past, which is overall a gift that we truly take for granted.  Memory provi...

 After reading chapter 25 of How to Read Literature Like a Professor--Don't read with your eyes--a paragraph within the chapter seemed to catch my eye. The author talks about a category used in numerous stories known as the "last-chance-for-change" stories. This type of story is time imperative by which the character of focus tends to be of old age. Within these stories, the older, main character has been presented multiple opportunities in which they can change, grow, and reform. However it is up until the very last available moment that they take this opportunity to grow and develop their perspectives/beliefs. Also, the author notes that while the main character tends to be older, the quester is typically younger. With this in mind, I began to think about this type of structure and storyline and I realized that not only is this technique used in literary works but also in cinematic pieces.  The first example I could think of is the popular, holiday movie A Christmas Car...