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Memento Mori (short story) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia For other uses, see Memento mori (disambiguation). "Memento Mori" is a short story written by Jonathan Nolan and published in the March 2001 edition of Esquire magazine. It was the basis for the film Memento. Contents [hide] 1 Plot 2 Background 3 References 4 External links [edit]Plot

In the story, a man named Earl has anterograde amnesia, a condition in which his brain cannot make new memories. Because of his inability to remember things for more than a few minutes, he uses notes and tattoos to keep track of new information. Earl received developed his condition after he and his wife were attacked by an unknown assailant. His wife was killed and Earl suffered severe head injuries, resulting in his amnesia. The story jumps between two time-frames. The first time frame finds Earl confined to a mental institution which he learns through written notes he had left himself. The second time frame finds Earl on the run after he escapes from the mental institution. He learns this through a third-person narrative. Earl's goal after escaping the institution is to find the man who murdered his wife and get revenge. This proves quite difficult for Earl since he lacks the ability to remember what happens to him on a daily basis. Using his wits and the help of the third-person narrative, Earl eventually succeeds in getting revenge on the man who murdered his wife, but is unable to remember his success. is Earl confined to a mental institution told via notes to himself. The second is after his escape told as a third-person narrative. Earl eventually succeeds in murdering the man, but is unable to remember his success. [edit]Background

Nolan got the idea for the story from his general psychology class at Georgetown University.[1] Nolan pitched the idea to his brother Christopher during a cross-country road trip from Chicago to Los Angeles. His brother responded to the idea, and encouraged him to write a first draft.[2] After Jonathan returned to Washington, D.C. to finish college, he sent his brother a draft two months later, and Christopher set to work on a screenplay, while Jonathan began finishing the short story.[2] Christopher eventually made the feature film Memento, starring Guy Pearce, which was inspired from Jonathan's story, although radically different. Jonathan's short story was eventually published in Esquire magazine, although it can also be found in James Mottram's making-of book about the film, The Making of Memento, and as a hidden special feature on the film's special edition DVD.[3]

===Psychological Background=== In Psychology, memory involves processes that encode, store and retrieve information in the brain. During the encoding process, information from the outside world is able to reach our senses in the form of stimuli. Encoding allows us to maintain information over time in a stored location. The retrieval process occurs when one attempts to recall the stored information to complete a process or activity. These are the three main stages in the function of memory.

In Memento Mori (the short story), the main character Earl suffers from anterograde amnesia,the loss of the ability to form or maintain new memories since an event which triggers said amnesia. Although Earl cannot form new memories, he is still able to recall memories that were formed before the event. There are many causes to anterograde amnesia. One of the main causes of anterograde amnesia, which caused Earl's amnesia, is traumatic brain injury. Most likely, damage to the hippocampus and surrounding cortices in the brain occurred when Earl was attacked by the assailant. In Earl's case and most other anterograde amnesia patients, the loss of declarative memory is common. This is the loss of the recollection of facts, while still being able to remember procedural things, like talking on a phone and tying one's shoes. There is a another case of amnesia called retrograde amnesia where one would lose the ability to recall past memories and can only remember newly formed memories.