Artificial Memory in Pat Barker's Double Vision

Abstract

Questions about artificial memory have become particularly urgent in recent years since memory is so crucial. it must show up in modern art. Artists question its practical role and attempt to unravel the complex web of societal and personal expectations surrounding it. Pat Barker's Double Vision (2003) actively explores such concern in which she tries to reflect the effect of the artificial memory throughout her characters in their actions by using their experiences in the war to be beneficial for people who didn't experience war before. Whereas the critical conversation has often boiled the complexity of the relationship between the traumas that the characters had experienced during the war and the artificial memory down to a debate for or against the view of not facing reality and pretending that the world is more secure than it is, That is, when the burden of the memory becomes too much to bear, a person may seek temporary relief by escaping to his mind by creating an imaginary world. Barker's quintessentially narrative and dialogic solution suggests a new and unusual way to come to terms with the problem. Rather than simply rehashing the debate, The novel underlines both the need of putting into words what was formerly unutterable and the immense impact that the system of memory has on one's life and surroundings.