Memory and reliability

We have already seen how the narrator's point of view can affect reliability in any type of narration, but memory also plays an important part in its reliability, just as much or even more than vantage point. Depending on how well the narrator remembers what happened, the atmosphere and the message transmitted to the reader changes significantly.

In the case of 'Spies', there's a particular event in the story which changes its course significantly, and while Stephen tells it he tries to recall the order in which things happened. Even though he ends up making clear what the conclusion of all the incident was ( Keith's uttering the six words: “My mother is a German spy”), he doesn't really make up his mind on when, or how it was that this happened. He remains doubtful about the day in which everything occurred, stating "When is this?... Still May, perhaps? Why aren't we at school? Perhaps it's a Saturday or a Sunday. No, there's the feel of a weekday morning in the air...". This doubt in his thoughts makes the reader suspect of just how reliable what Stephen is telling actually is. He does remember what happened, but he can't seem to put the pieces together chronologically, so he is not completely sure of what order things occurred in, as he well expresses "...Or have I got everything back to front? Had the policemen already happened before this?". He even questions the possibility of making up a story : "It's so difficult to remember what order things occurred in--but if you can't remember that, then it's impossible to work out which led to which, and what the connection was".

This, as a whole, shows how the memory of a narrator when explaining a particular event can sometimes make the reader distrust his reliability. In Stephen's case, he makes us suspect something in his way of narrating  Keith's confession is wrong, because he seems to have forgotten the date and the chronological order the facts have happened in.

Sensory images and memory

At the beginning of the book, we can find that the narrator uses many sense-related images to describe his memories. One of them , for example, is when Stephen tries to describe a peculiar smell whose origin he could not determine ("It's something quite harsh and coarse. It reeks."). Other examples would be when he makes an effort to recreate the texture of the scaly belt he wore as a child ("In the tip of my fingers, though, even now, I can feel the delicious silvery serrated texture of the snake's scaliness.") or the failed garter of his sock (“I can feel it in my fingertips, as clearly as the scaliness of the snake, the hopeless bagginess of the failed garter beneath the turned-down top), or when the sound of a train makes the past rematerialise, and turns the present Close into his childhood street.

The use of these sensory images was proved to be a good method to remember things in a TV show called "Brain Games". In an episode of this show, the host asked a group of people to memorize a certain amount of items in a room. In their first try they could only remember around 3 or 4 items out of 10, but in their second try, the host told them to think of a sensory aspect of each item to see if  their score improved. To their surprise, it worked. This time they could recall around 6 or 7 of the 10 items.

The studies and experiments made in "Brain Games" show why Stephen focuses on sensory elements to retrieve his childhood memories.  As shown in this TV show, using the senses helps us remember.

How is the reader engaged in the first chapter?

I would like to share an essay written by Ramiro Barreto,  a senior IV student,  on this subject:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W24K8mWmoNe77023QAhcnB05nLyKotbgAbnJffzVSxo/edit?usp=sharing

Read it and pay attention to how ideas are organised and developed. Notice how the first paragraph acts as an introduction to the topic and the last one presents the conclusion.

Memories in chapter 1

The story is written in the first person and it presents the memories of the narrator, who is an elderly man. It is June. It is summer. A powerful perfume brings back the smells of the plants and gardens of the narrator's childhood into his mind, and activates his memory.

The narrator remembers his childhood in a suburb of London.  He remembers his friend Keith and Keith's mother with her brown eyes, laughing and a moment later, crying
Other apparently disconnected memories flash into his mind.: "A shower of sparks...A feeling of shame...someone unseen coughing, trying not to be heard...a jug covered by a lace weighted with four blue beads... " He also mentions six words, which “changed everything” but he doesn't reveal them yet.

All these glimpses into the narrator's childhood arouse our interest and attention as readers. We feel curious. We want to know what were the six words that his friend Keith said and how all these fragmentary memories are related, so we want to turn the page to find out what happens when he visits his childhood neighborhood.