Greener Valleys: a novella

• Main Author: Low, Eunice Soe Ching
• Other Authors: -
• Format: Thesis-Master by Research
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2023
• Subjects: Arts and Humanities; Literature
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/164478
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This thesis is divided into two sections: Part 1 is my creative work, Greener Valleys: A Novella, which depicts a mother and her son encountering their memory worlds within their physical worlds. It examines the shape-shifting aspect of mental time travel, in which what we remember is affected not only by how we interpret an ever-shifting present, but also by how we imagine ourselves within an ever-elusive future. Specifically, Greener Valleys traces the role that memory plays in buttressing a parent–child relationship, or in causing it to unravel. Part 2 is an exegesis entitled “The Mystical Mind’s Eye: A Discussion of Mental Time Travel through Fictions of Memory”. Here, my creative work is framed within a wider discussion of memory, spanning both cognitive studies and fictional representations of memory. I first refer to the works of Marcel Proust and C.S. Lewis, whose depictions of involuntary memory are preceded by human encounters with objects and setting, and who paint mental time travel as a mystical and abstract experience. Additionally, I explore three other fictions of memory, and discuss the approaches that the respective authors have taken to answer the fundamental questions of “who are we?” and “why do we exist?” Through my novella and exegesis, I invite readers to consider that we are biased judges over what we remember. This is because when we impose meaning on surfacing memories, we do so from a present point of view, and with future-oriented eyes. Ultimately, I hope to inject more creativity and imagination to a predominantly neuroscientific discourse of mental time travel, and to see more diverse voices in the fictions of memory space.