Overview: Jordan Harrison's Marjorie Prime explores our relationships with family, much like Henrik Ibsen did in his time with A Doll House. However, Harrison also delves into the ways in which memory shapes our choices and future. By doing so, he attends to the new challenges we face in our psychologically conscious world.
Directions: Read Marjorie Prime, Part I (pages 1-33 in the document). Next, compose a comprehensive blog response (300 words) attending to the following questions, using direct evidence from the text: By using the conceit of a Prime, how do the characters reinvent their loved ones into what and who they want them to be? How do the Primes and the living, in turn, reinvent themselves? How are we all like Marjorie, when it come to memory retrieval? How do the ideas of Existentialism apply to these ideas and this play? Are there any questions or concepts you found interesting or confusing that you would like to explore in class?
Marjorie Prime sure ended on a cliffhanger in this first part! I am really interested to find out who Damien is and what his background story is in all of this and why he was compelled to kill the family dog when he probably committed suiced?! But anyways, using a holographic prime to help people cope with the loss of a loved one or to keep someone company is quite clever and I could definitely see it becoming a type of technology that could be used sometime in the future. In the play people use the primes by designing them to look like themselves when they were ‘in their prime’. So basically the hologram looks like themself in the best years of their life according to whoever the prime is for. In addition to this the Prime is also fed countless amounts of information about that person’s life so that they are able to mimic that person to the best of their ability. I believe that the Prime’s are in turn able to reinvent themselves to also fit the role of the person of whom they are supposed to embody by using the same type of humor or sarcasm as them and same the same phrases and jokes as them too. The Prime’s soak up all of the information around them to try to become as smart and as helpful as possible and so it is evident that Walter Prime talks about things that Jon told him about to Marjorie so that he will seem more like a real person to her.
ReplyDeleteI feel as though one of the biggest ways that Existentialism fits into this play is when mentioning the subject of choice and free will. People with Alzheimer’s are very vulnerable and need lots of attention and care from those around them because they often forget where they are and forget about daily things that seem so simple to everyone else in the world. This means that it can be really hard for Marjorie to make decisions for herself. Marjorie has difficulty in trying to remember everyday things and even forgets her own beliefs and that she is an atheist and when confronted by her daughter about having a Bible now she states, “I’m not / prey” which just goes to show how vulnerable she feels to everything. She wants to be able to make her own decisions in life but her mental and physical state is keeping her from those things and it is truly quite sad. It is basically impossible for her to be an independent person and so I feel as though she find some independence when she speaks to Walter Prime and she is able to use him as a sort of audio diary to recount stories and happenings from her life. To be an Existentialist is to be an independent, secular and free being and unfortunately as Marjorie sits in her vegitative and forgetful state she is slowly losing all ability for her to have any ounce of independence in her life.
The Prime is a blank canvas to become, say, and do anything that it learns. As Walter Prime says himself, “I sound like whoever I talk to.” From Walter Prime, we are able to learn the history of the characters and what is important to them from an unreliable narrative. From the story that Walter Prime presents in the beginning, we are introduced to two lives being merged into one. Toni and Toni Two represent the two Walter’s who have never met, yet their stories are being merged together. They were always aware of which dog was which, despite them looking similar, but it didn’t matter to them because Toni Two was able to provide them with the same amount of comfort that the first Toni did. This is what Majorie is trying to achieve from the new Walter. They are aware of what stories come from the real Walter, but Majorie continues to change them whilst hearing them- to which Walter Prime agrees and follows as she wishes. His goal is to help her live a healthier, happier life, despite losing her son and her husband, such as how he reminds her to eat, even something as little as peanut butter.
ReplyDeleteAlthough we are not aware of how Walter died, it doesn’t seem to be the same way that their son passed away. Damian had commited suicide and did not exist in Walter Prime’s memory, despite having a large space in the real Walter memory, since he “never got over it”. However, thinking it over, they chose to have Walter created into a hologram instead of Damian. I think this is Almereyda’s way of saying that Damian decided it was time for his whole being to rest- through suicide.
Jon mentions how Majorie, despite her alzheimer's, has never forgotten her son, Damian, yet, he doesn’t appear in the stories Walter Prime is told. In the same way that Toni Two was made, Walter Prime is only supposed to provide comfort and not fill the void. Hearing about her son still hurts her deeply, as said, “For fifty years, she never said his name, she hid all the pictures. It was that hard.” She did not tell him that part of Walter’s life because that is not a part that she wishes to hear about; she hasn’t grown to accept it herself.
Walter Prime is really only a Prime in the sense that he and the real Walter look identical. The Prime’s personality is molded by his family to be the person that they want him to be, instead of the person Walter actually was. So, the purpose of Walter Prime in Marjorie’s life is not to be a reincarnation of her dead husband, but to be a helpful companion with a familiar face around whom she feels comfortable. He also serves as the one whom Marjorie, Tess and Jon all have deep, human conversations with. They do not have the courage to have these conversations with their living family, so they turn to the Prime, whose primary function is listening and asking questions like, “tell me more about . . . .” Marjorie, in particular, uses Walter Prime as a means of altering her memories and believing them to be true. After Walter Prime tells her the story of when they saw “My Best Friend’s Wedding” and then got engaged, Marjorie says, “‘What if we saw ‘Casablanca’ instead? . . . Then, by the next time we talk, it will be true.” Since the Prime absorbs all the information he is told, he is now programmed to tell the story as if they saw “Casablanca” instead.
ReplyDeleteI am quite interested by the idea that we remember the last time we remembered a memory, and not the memory itself. My grandmother suffers from fronto-temporal dementia, so she cannot speak anymore, and it has become very rare for her to express any emotion. Occasionally, she lets out a small laugh when my grandfather tells her a funny story from her childhood. When my grandfather finds a story that makes her laugh, he tells it to her frequently, and she laughs each time. However, now I am thinking that maybe she is not actually laughing at the story itself, but she is laughing because she remembers that she laughed the last time she heard the story.
The prime is an interesting invention in theory, but it is all too unhealthy. It attempts to eliminate the parts of loss and separation part of the human cycle of existence. The prime was created as a way to remember a person through the subjective lenses of whoever the prime communicates with. It is obvious and no large feat to notice this, as the prime takes in any information and memory fed to it so that it may repeat it later. The primes are reinvented versions of loved ones for this very reason. By the compiling and cross referencing of multiple subjective lenses, the prime will slowly but surely progress into an ultimately objective view on what was a fluid human life, as almost all human life is. For instance, the prime could never be the real fluid human that was Walter because it didn't know crucial things like Damian, his late son, nor how his life was impacted forever by it. The characters do not protect Walter prime from the knowledge of the death, but they withdraw that information originally in order to prevent Walter prime from taking up any negative qualities of the real Walter that may have been adopted post mortem. The living are reinvented to lie to themselves, deny and bury this information in hopes that it is never taken up again and no one will have to be affected by it. I suppose we are all like Marjorie when it comes to memory retrieval for the very valid reason that our memories are never fully accurate. We do not only remember what we want to remember, that is simply incorrect or else humans would never want to remember any traumatic event as it negatively impedes us psychologically and physically. Our memories get humbled, exaggerated, stretched, fuzzy, clearer, all differently. It is not something easy to create an image of with words, but all memories are remembered differently for no other reason than our nature.
ReplyDeleteThe play uses the 3 steps of existentialism very well. Briefly: Anguish is Tess and Jon’s responsibility towards Marjorie and keeping her happy and alive, but unfortunately suffering by having to keep a CPU reincarnate of Tess’ father around. Literally the forlornness is in the passage in which Tess goes ballistic at Marjorie for listening to Julie’s influence of the bible. They all understand that there is no god. Tess and Jon’s forlornness lies in how they know one day they will grow old and one of them will either have to pass away first or be alone for the rest of their existence. They dread this, and create their a priori good as standing by one another until death do them apart. The despair is their knowing that they may make any decision that they like, and their future lies in their hands, but their time may be limited by the inevitable doom that faces them in the future. The despair is harder to put together for this, as my point is a stretch, but I believe the point is there.
ReplyDeleteIn Jordan Harrison’s play “Marjorie Prime” we see existentialism ideals displayed through a family’s interactions as Marjorie suffers from Dementia. The Prime version of their family members are not the same as a human, but they act as a caretaker and an outlet to talk to. Tess and Jon live with Marjorie, but they cannot be with Marjorie at all times to make sure she remembers to eat and is okay. It is hard for people to accept that they need help caring for themselves, but the Prime is a caretaker Marjorie feels comfortable with, because it is so close to her late husband.
Walter Prime: “Marjorie, we both know what no dishes means.”
Marjorie: “It means I haven’t been eating.”
Both Jon and the nurse choose to confide in Walter Prime, because he is not fully human and will accept what they tell him no matter what. If we don’t feel comfortable talking to our loved ones we are alone and the Prime cannot help them. The prime wants to obtain more and more knowledge so that it can be closer to being human and in turn is closer to being a way for humans to heal. However, the prime does more harm than good, because it stops communication between the family and an individual must heal on their own. In this aspect of Marjorie Prime we are able to see existentialist ideas are present. We cannot fully recover from loss or trauma by depending on someone else we must learn to grow again as an individual. While the Prime is helpful in basic caretaking of Marjorie, it cannot be responsible for giving emotional support or guidance. If the Prime exists it is impossible for the family to grieve and grow from the pain, because they feel like their loved one isn’t really gone.
The purpose of a prime changes throughout the play. In the beginning walter prime is a memory bank for Marjorie because she has dementia and is losing her memories. However, the primes for marjorie and tess are meant to completely replace the loved one that has been lost. This second purpose can be detrimental for the living person if used improperly. If a person is completely aware that they are talking to a computer that only knows what it has been told, it may seem that they are talking to themselves. However, when Marjorie uses walter prime to remember, it is as if she is talking to a different person, because even though it is only reciting her memories and stories, she does not remember them. To her, walter prime is a real person because it appears to have it’s own memories. Primes ultimately reflect whoever they talk to. They are a glorified diary. One cannot look to a diary to learn something new about themselves unless they have forgotten it. I think the concept of memory as remembering something only as you last remembered it is very interesting. This is most obvious when we revisit places or things after a very long time. Take, for instance, ski mountains. I learned to ski on bradford, a very small mountain. Once I learned how to ski I began to ski at bigger mountains, and did not go back to bradford for a very long time. When I did go back, it was a lot smaller than I remembered. That is because I grew physically and mentally from the last time I was there, and my memory of the “mountain” did not grow with me.
ReplyDeleteI also watched the super bowl this past Sunday, and one of the ads was very similar to the concept of a prime. Google had created a way for their “AI” to remember certain things that a person liked. This was demonstrated using an old man to ask the computer for pictures of when he was younger. Marjorie prime is set in the future, but google’s technology is catching up to “future tech”. Obviously there was no hologram, but the concept of a prime is now being put on the market. This was a weird feeling because we are watching a play about how certain technology could have negative side affects, but also living in a world where this technology is becoming available.
There are several definitions for the word ‘prime’ with one of them being “of the best possible quality; excellent” which is why the Prime version of someone is the ideal version of them, a version in which all their flaws or baggage can be erased and a person can see their loved one for what they want them to see them as, instead of for how they actually were. In the play Marjorie Prime by Jordan Harrison, Marjorie reinvents her late husband Walter through her prime, purposely designing him so that he appears as if he were in his thirties. It can be assumed that is when she liked him best or that is the version of him she would like to focus on and remember most because it is when she fell in love with him. By enabling their client to choose what their prime looks like, the creators of the prime grant their customers the power to transform the memory of their loved one into their reality. The memory of someone who has passed on not only continues to live on but rather becomes so normal that one cannot even remember the true past but just the morphed reality. Marjorie began losing her memory and getting confused merging certain events in her past together such as the lives of her two dogs named Toni. The stories retold to her by Walter Prime regarding the dogs she loved so much muddled together blending the two dogs into “the same dog in their memories”. It did not “matt[er] which Toni had run along the beach, or which Toni had dug up all the bulbs in the garden” because the memories were so far in the past that it was impossible for Marjorie to decipher which was which, but most importantly, it did not matter to her because the idea of having a dog named Toni gave her comfort. Primes are not automatically given access to all of the knowledge of the people they are attempting to emulate, instead, they are fed this information one at a time and “like a child learning” they pick up on and instantly believe everything that is told of them never wanting to have an opposing view. It is because of this that Walter Prime accepts Marjorie’s edits to her and her husband's life story because they are able to study a person’s “imperfections” so that they may “seem more real”. In changing the past, both Marjorie and Walter Prime are attempting to comfort Marjorie in her time of need. Instead of reciting to her memories or things that could potentially upset her, or remind her of negative times in her life such as the death of her son Damian, they work together to build a bubble of protection so that she can live off the rest of her days without any pain. In a similar way, humans often change things that happen in the past whether they know it or not, so that it lines up with their story or their perception of what happened as a way to save themselves from the potential pain of finding out the truth. This is especially true for when someone passes away. Instead of focusing on everything that happened in their life, people choose to focus on the good things that the deceased accomplished leaving that as their legacy so that when they think of them they can choose to see only positives. This view is unrealistic however comforting to humans because they do not want to view their loved one as a normal human being but rather as someone who was saint, or god like.
ReplyDeleteI think the point of “Marjorie Prime” is that memories, no matter how much comfort they can give you when in need of a good grieving or nostalgia session, are never true. It’s like we’ve discussed in class, how when you remember something it’s actually just the memory of the last time you remembered the real event. This makes it so that eventually the memory you have is twisted for better or for worse based on your own inaccurate recollection of whatever it is you’re thinking of. The primes in “Marjorie Prime” are literally just databases filled with the warped, very personal memories of those who chat with them. A prime can never sound exactly like whoever they are based on, because those people are dead and their stories and personality can only be described through the eyes and memories of those who knew them. Like Walter Prime states in the beginning scene, “I sound like whoever I talk to.” (8) He doesn’t sound like Walter, which is sort of ironic considering how realistic and meaningful the prime’s conversations are with the totally oblivious Marjorie. I can understand how the prime system would help with retaining memories, considering it feeds back exactly what you tell it with complete accuracy. However, it’s an awful tool for grieving, as it can only remind people of all the things they were unable to say to whoever it is they lost. During one of her dementia episodes, Marjorie shouts out for Walter, which in turn activates Walter Prime to comfort her. When she yells at him to go away it’s out of frustration over the fact that he’s not real and that she can never get back the real version of the man who she lost years ago. Marjorie, in a somewhat interrogative tone, tells the prime, “You said I’d get better, but you’re the one who’s getting better.” (26) Despite the memories she’s been able to recall thanks to the prime, Marjorie’s mental health continues to decline due to her desire for the past and the people she lost. This probably contributes to her sudden death in the middle of the play. Tess’s character is one that piqued my interest because of how much she reminded me of a character from one of my favorite musicals named Alison. In the musical “Fun Home”, Alison Bechdel recalls her childhood and college years when trying to illustrate a graphic novel about her father, who was closeted and killed himself by walking into traffic while she was still a student. In a heartbreaking scene, she replaces her college self in a memory of her father from when she visited home. The two of them sit in an imaginary car and in an imaginary setting made up by Alison’s memories of their final time spent together. Alison calls out to her father and tries to tell him all of the things she regrets not telling him before he died, but he can’t hear her or respond because none of what’s going on is real. It’s all made up of memories.
ReplyDeleteTess is like Alison because both of them are middle-aged and mourning the loss of a parent who they felt they never got to say enough to. Tess talks to Majorie’s prime and is clearly frustrated, recognizing that everything she is saying doesn’t matter since her real mother never heard it. She says, “Sometimes you’re so good, you’re so her, like that bit with the subtle racism? It makes it harder when something -- stumps you.” (36) Her new conversations with the prime will also never truly replicate the conversations she had with Marjorie when she was still alive, considering when Marjorie was older she couldn’t remember a thing. It made me very sad to read that Tess committed suicide since she had so many people in her life that cared for her deeply. Her reasoning comes from a small passage in Part Two when she states, in reference to a person’s life, “There’s the half where you live and the half where you live through other people.” (51) This quote is very pessimistic and shows how much more concerned Tess was over her mother’s health than actually trying to make her mother feel better. Marjorie had joyful moments sprinkled throughout the play, and those moments, whether they were experienced thanks to the memories of others or not, made Marjorie’s life worth a little bit more.
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ReplyDeleteLove is about accepting the flaws along with strengths and the movie shows that the main character, Marjorie, was never truly in love and was deprived of a proper familial relationship. She was only in love with the idea of her spouse. This is why Marjorie would rather choose a younger handsomer version of her spouse, Walter. The Primes, often times, are more “human” than the actual humans ironically. The have a growth mindset and fix themselves every time they act or don’t act in a way that their human wants them to. They also try to probe deeper when they find out about a certain emotional or psychological aspect that they didn’t know about previously. Overall, the humans are definitely less emotional and do not function to as full of an extent as the Primes often do but this could also be a trick played on the audience because it is sometimes hard to pinpoint when a character dies and turns into a Prime or if they ever were real at all.
ReplyDeleteMajorie is heavily hinted to have Dementia or Alzheimer’s and her Prime acts as her external brain rather than a manifestation of her past. She constantly edits and reinvents a memory to suit her preferences and this shows how biased humans can be when it comes to cognitive processes like memory retrieval. I remember reading an anecdote about memories where sometime when your share a memory with someone, they may remember it more vividly while your memory of it fades away so it is sometimes possible that people remember an occurrence involving you that you do not yourself which is both very puzzling to think about. As for possible class discussions, The progression of machine sentience would be an interesting topic to discuss in class. Another one would be the way that technology can impact human customs with each other and with technology itself (i.e. Primes, Androids, Robots, etc.)
Primes are, obviously, ways for people to remain in touch with their loved ones. They serve not only as caretakers but as reincarnations of the ones the characters love. This offers an interesting point, though: how do the characters love their deceased family members? For Marjorie, this is Walter in his 30s, while everyone else views their deceased relatives at the age they were when they were introduced (Marjorie is the same age throughout, and so is Tess to Jon). This must be how she remembers him, with her Altzheimer’s, but it’s only his beauty that she wishes were the same. She even approaches him and says, “something’s a little off with the nose”, analyzing him for his looks and evaluating her own memory. After not being with him for 10 years, it’s easy to skew the memory she has of him. At the point where Marjorie can no longer remember what exactly her husband looked like, where does Walter stop and Walter Prime begin? He is being fed information to replicate Walter, so the only thing that would make him different is a motherboard. In the story of Toni and Toni Two, “the longer they had her [Toni Two], the less it mattered which Toni had run along the beach, or which Toni had dug up all the bulbs in the garden”. Just as Walter is gone, Walter Prime starts to replace him, slowly enough so that Marjorie will eventually get confused between the two, and they’ll merge into one. Tess, the one who’s against Primes, sees Walter Prime for what he truly is because she refuses to let the idea of her father become tainted. Eventually, though, it’s futile. Unconsciously or consciously, the Prime replaces Walter. Jon, Tess, and Marjorie will eventually adjust their actions to support the Prime, like Jon staying up late in order to tell the Prime Walter’s darkest secrets. Like Jon and Tess talk about later in the play, memory is constantly folded upon itself since humans only remember the last time that they remembered a memory. As we continue to remember it, the image gets distorted, the lines blur, and the memory is slowly changed into something different. This happens for Marjorie on a much faster scale than for Tess, and it has a strong effect on her. She’s become an embodiment of existentialism: she is responsible for her mother and must carry that responsibility, yet she can’t do anything to help her mother’s deterioration. The doctors, the ones who are “feeding [Marjorie] those pills” are technically the higher power, the ones who can alter her condition, and yet there is nothing to be done. Even the Primes, who are supposed to be constantly helping Marjorie recover, can’t truly help in a way that matters. Tess is lost as she loses both her mother and the thought of what her father had been.
ReplyDeleteThe concept of Prime is interesting and useful, especially for someone like Marjorie, who is trying to keep her memories. But since they do not know anything until the characters tell them who they are, Tess and Jon can leave out information that they do not want the Primes to know. This way the Primes are not a complete version of their deceased counterpart, they are the version that the characters wanted their loved ones to be in the first place.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that Tess does not want to tell Walter Prime about Damian is understandable. She does not want to retell such a tragic story or to have Walter say it to her mother. But just because it hurts does not mean Marjorie should not know about it. By not telling Walter Prime about parts of his life, Tess withholds a lot of information from Marjorie, which defends the purpose of having Walter Prime anyways. Jon says it best when he says, “how much does she have to forget before she’s not your mom anymore?” The purpose of Walter Prime is to help Marjorie’s memories, but is Tess is not telling him everything, Marjorie will not remember much, and soon she will not remember anything.
Withholding information about Damian is not ideal or smart. As Jon says to Walter Prime, “for fifty years she never said his name, she hid all the pictures. It was that hard. But she never forgot him, Walter. She never forgot.” Damian’s story is an essential part of who Marjorie is. From what Jon describes, her personality when she remembered Damian and now are different. She seems happier, not remembering her son’s suicide, but she is not herself if she does not remember. The truth hurts, but she deserves to know because she is not Marjorie without it.
It’s really interesting to reread the first part of the play with the knowledge of what happens later in later acts. Toni, the small black poodle, is a medium for which Marjorie’s memories are contorted, a mixture of reality and fantasy, as Alzheimer’s tightens its grip upon her.
ReplyDeleteTess made a slight comment about parrots early on in the play, mentioning that “Penny’s father had a parrot… he gave it to her when he died. And now, twenty years later, it still says things in his voice.” This premonition speaks to the difficulty humans have with letting their loved ones go. We like to maintain a semblance of order in our lives, to slip into an endless routine, but the loss of a loved one changes all of this. Memorabilia we surround ourselves in, simple parrots of a person long gone. The memory that Walter Prime is happens to be be one of youth, the very opposite of Marjorie’s current state. Jon has difficulty distinguishing whether Marjorie “is talking to a computer… or that it’s a computer pretending to be [Tess’] dad.” Since Marjorie’s mind is going, the line between fact and fiction is even more so blurred, as stories repeated to Marjorie that were fed to the Prime by Jon and Tess hold more meaning (since they are seen as truth).
Seeing a loved on in three dimensional form is more comforting than photos and videos, old schoolwork or letters. The ability to recognize a face is innate in human nature, stronger the relationship with said person was. In addition, the Primes try to emulate the personality of the deceased, “[studying] our imperfections, to seem more real: It can use non sequiturs… it can, you know… misplace modifiers.” As the Prime converges on reality, the memories of loved ones are not longer discrete, but tarnished. There is not chance that Tess can look back on fond memories of her father without thinking about Walter Prime, even if the Prime does not resemble the man she once knew. Despite this, Marjorie, who couldn’t remember day to day that her spouse had died, saw Walter Prime more closely to a relation that Tess did.
The scene in which Tess discovers the Bible and accuses Marjorie’s assistance of taking advantage of the elderly is rooted in a sense of hypocrisy. Tess reprimands Julie, the aid, accusing her of “selling [Marjorie] her fairy tale now that you have a little more reason to belief it.” However, the story of Jesus and the comforts of life after death are just the same as the lies of the Prime. This advanced technology plays into peoples’ inner fears about loss, and is merely a coping tool, just like the Bible. The attack on religion can be seen as an existentialist sentiment, but there are undertones that dismiss this theory of atheism. Walter had been reincarnated, living a continuous life, like the man whose voice the parrot assumes.
Marjorie and her family’s intended use for Walter Prime is as a resource; a guide to help her with her evident memory problems. Walter Prime has an ability to take in data to the point where it (or he) can tell stories, ask and answer questions, recall events, etc. But this usage also has an unintended consequence: as Marjorie becomes closer and closer to Walter Prime, she grows farther and farther apart from her daughter, Tess. Therefore, it can be argued that Walter Prime has another use, as a replacement for otherwise necessary human interaction. With this point in mind, it is clear to me why Tess was always so uncomfortable with the idea of Walter Prime in the first place - not only was it almost certainly extremely weird to have a robot version of her father in the house, but it probably did not feel good having to play second fiddle to the said robot in her mother’s life.
ReplyDeleteThe Primes, meanwhile, are constantly “reinventing” themselves as well. They might not be life forms, nor do they have a brain, but they do have a capacity for learning and improvement. Whenever Walter Prime has a conversation with Marjorie, it is gaining experience and knowledge about Marjorie’s history. After absorbing enough information through spending time with her, he is able to recall more of her life than she can.
I think that we are all like Marjorie when it comes to memory retrieval in the sense that it is easier for us to recall certain events when we are able to talk about it with someone (or something). I frequently recall the most random bits of information by simply having normal conversations with my friends.
One concept I found interesting was the replacement of humans with/the reliance on technology within a community. It’s a problem that certainly exists today, with humans even losing out on jobs to AI in some cases. The clear separation that emerged between Tess and Marjorie showed just one consequence of being overly reliant on technology in a society. It brings up the question “How far are we willing to go in the real world?”
ReplyDeleteThis play makes me uncomfortable because it is so easy to relate it to my own life, and I think most everyone must feel this way when they read or view this play. We’re all like Marjorie when it comes to memory retrieval- we remember memories not from when we actually experienced them, but recall from the last time that we thought of them/remembered them. It’s kind of scary to think that this is the case - how much of what we remember is true? Did we spin things out of proportion? Add or delete details? Were we influenced by our current mood or the recollections of those around us? Or was what we remembered truly and exactly what happened? These mixed up memories change the main characters of the play as well as the character of the primes. They change out the terrible parts of Marjorie’s old life and replace it with good memories, therefore excluding the death of her son Damian: “For fifty years she never said his name, she hid all the pictures. It was that hard. But she never forgot him, Walter. She never forgot.” Damian’s death shaped Marjorie into the person that she is. By excluding this information from her prime’s memories, Marjorie is not truly Marjorie.
This had me thinking about a conversation that my Contemporary Texts class had a few days ago: would we be who we are today without the misfortunes we’ve faced and overcome? We specifically studied “The Rose That Grew From Concrete” by 2pac, which reads: “Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete? Proving nature's law is wrong, it learned to walk without having feet. Funny it seems, but by keeping its dreams, it learned to breathe fresh air. Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else ever cared.” I think that without hardships and misfortunes, we would all be lesser than the person we are today. It may be alright to exclude this information for the happiness and well being of Marjorie as she is ill. However, in excluding this vital information about Marjorie’s son, she can never truly be the person she once was.
This play is absolutely fascinating. I think it was a fantastic choice on Harrison’s part to make the Primes resemble the owner’s loved ones in all ways but their memories. By removing this key aspect of self, instead of being perfect replacements, the Primes become moldable, refinable creatures. Marjorie herself recognizes this, for when Walter Prime tells her about how they saw My Best Friend’s Wedding the day Walter proposed to her, she interjects, saying “What if we saw Casablanca instead? Let’s say we saw Casablanca in an old theater with velvet seats, and then, on the way home, you proposed. Then, by the next time we talk, it will be true.” While this appears seemingly harmless, it is quite chilling. By altering her own past through Walter Prime, she creates a new, more improved version of reality for herself, and further diverts Walter Prime from the person he aims to mimic.
ReplyDeleteI was stunned when I learned that when we remember something, we don’t actually remember the event; we remember our last memory of it. In this sense, we are all like Marjorie, for although we may be more mentally fit, we alter reality just as often as she does. This seems to be quite similar to the ideals of existentialism, for in a way we are forging our own paths of reality, whether they be realistic or not. Marjorie chooses how she remembers her past, thus forging her own destiny, for better or for worse.
One of the most impactful moments of Part 1 is when Tess questions the trustworthiness of the Primes. Lamenting to Jon, she cries “we tell them our deepest secrets, even though we have no earthly idea how they work. We treat them like our loved ones.” This calls into question the humanity of the machines. To what degree are they truly human? What does it even mean to be “human”? This mystery is truly incredible.
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ReplyDeleteIn Marjorie Prime Jordan Harrison utilizes a sci-fi setting to better explore the way we perceive our past through memories. I forget which class it was, but I previously have done some research on Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia for a school project. It really amazes me how well Harrison captures the “drifting in and out” aspect of memory loss. Even more contributing to the realism is the mashing of forgetfulness into Marjorie’s most lucid conversations. The pattern with which she talks is almost a nod to how sinister dementia can be in the sense that the remembering part of Marjorie’s mind teases her listeners with normalcy before pointing out to them that she is not well with a bout of forgetfulness. For Tess especially I am sure it feels like torture to see genuine bits of her mother reappear only to dissolve moments later in a cyclic manner.
ReplyDeleteBesides the story’s depth in portraying dementia, I believe Harrison does well to depict the way we memorize our past. This is emphasized mainly through Walter Prime and, more significantly, Tess and Jon’s opinions about the Prime. Despite the Walter Prime’s ability to concoct a database of information and adapt to the characters’ perceptions of the original Walter a reigning conflict in the plot is whether or not we would be able to describe a Prime as an accurate depiction. A coexisting question would be: does it matter if all the Prime is is a vessel of memories? These questions lead to the clashing opinions held between Tess and Jon. Tess certainly holds more discomfort towards it, saying “It bothers me that you’re helping it pretend to be my dad…”. She is painfully aware that while the Prime aims to be an exact representation of her father, it is simply a projection of their memories. Tess believes there is more to someone than just how we remember them and therefore sees it as unfit to even try to “optimize” the Prime. Jon on the other hand is more accepting, perhaps because he had a more indirect relationship with Walter in life. In fact, it is most likely that while Walter was alive Jon’s connection to his father-in-law was already through primarily stories and memories shared by Tess and Marjorie, so it is not too strange that he is not uncomfortable with the Prime. While arguing he even describes the Prime as the real deal, saying “It’s your father she’s being nice to.” However, like all things real, the conflicting perspectives between Tess and Jon has its own greys as well. At the end of the part, when Jon is sharing to the Prime about Walter’s son Damian, he stutters in his explanation while trying to explain why he killed himself. He stutters because he too realizes there is too much ambiguity to our own memories to truly encapsulate the reality of the past and stops himself from giving an unrealistic interpretation to the Prime by saying “I shouldn’t be…” He finishes the explanation by saying “But if you’re Walter, you would know, wouldn’t you.” and the Prime replies “Yes I would.”..... I love this line because despite the Prime’s belief that simply living the reality provides all information, even the real Walter would never be able to explain why Damian committed suicide. Reality is ambiguous.
The first part of Marjorie Prime encompasses the idea of existentialism because each Prime is their own unique being, in that they do not act exactly as the person did. Although the Prime looks the same as the person from a certain time in their life, such as Walter Prime appears as a younger man, the Primes appear as a new version of the original person. This follows the opposite of the idea of existentialism in that Marjorie and particularly Jon mold Walter Prime into who they want him to be, which may not be an accurate representation as to who he was before. The Prime is not able to make decisions for itself, it simply follows the mold that is put in place for it. Marjorie relies heavily on Walter Prime to relive her memories in the way that she remembers them. This also represents the idea of existentialism in that Marjorie is reliving and retelling the memories the way that she wants to remember them. She is in control of the memories that she is telling, such as Toni and Toni 2. Retelling these memories helps her dementia in that she is able to train her brain in remembering her important memories. We are like Marjorie in memory retrieval in that we tell stories of our memories the way that we remember them, and eventually our brain is trained to remember it this way.
ReplyDeleteIn Jordan Harrison’s play “Marjorie Prime” we see existentialism ideals displayed through a family’s interactions as Marjorie suffers from Dementia. The Prime version of their family members are not the same as a human, but they act as a caretaker and an outlet to talk to. Tess and Jon live with Marjorie, but they cannot be with Marjorie at all times to make sure she remembers to eat and is okay. It is hard for people to accept that they need help caring for themselves, but the Prime is a caretaker Marjorie feels comfortable with, because it is so close to her late husband. Walter Prime: “Marjorie, we both know what no dishes means.” Marjorie: “It means I haven’t been eating.” Both Jon and the nurse choose to confide in Walter Prime, because he is not fully human and will accept what they tell him no matter what. If we don’t feel comfortable talking to our loved ones we are alone and the Prime cannot help them. The prime wants to obtain more and more knowledge so that it can be closer to being human and in turn is closer to being a way for humans to heal. However, the prime does more harm than good, because it stops communication between the family and an individual must heal on their own. In this aspect of Marjorie Prime we are able to see existentialist ideas are present. We cannot fully recover from loss or trauma by depending on someone else we must learn to grow again as an individual. While the Prime is helpful in basic caretaking of Marjorie, it cannot be responsible for giving emotional support or guidance. If the Prime exists it is impossible for the family to grieve and grow from the pain, because they feel like their loved one isn’t really gone.
ReplyDeleteMarjorie Prime is very interesting in the way that the characters all go through a phase of self aware make believe. Every time the scene changes to a new prime after Marjorie, there is this attempt at recreating what’s gone followed by the loneliness of trying to talk into a mirror while pretending the reflection is a person. This part is where the existentialism part comes in to play. None of what Tess or Jon says to the primes really matters because it’s not the real person. The words are empty. Ultimately, talking to the primes gives neither Tess or Jon any sort of closure. However, this did not hold true for Marjorie. This is perhaps because Marjorie was as dependent on the prime as the prime was on her. Even though Walter Prime is still an AI like the rest, the relationship actually somewhat qualifies as one because it is not the one way dependency of the others. Marjorie and Walter bounce memories off each other instead of simply feeding them in one direction. Marjorie is like a prime herself, reliant on other people to tell her who she was, which perhaps made it easier for her to accept Walter Prime. This is especially evident when Jon mentions Jean Paul not actually having been the 8th best tennis player in the world. Her character arc also follows the concept of unreliable memories most closely. The stories she tells to Walter Prime are imperfect, and change in a blunt way when she says something. In contrast, Marjorie Prime and Tess Prime are so unsettling because the memory of who they were based off of is so close at hand. The kindness they display only send nails in the empty reality of anything to say. Their purpose being to provide closure is what denies it when they talk, since all it does is enhance the regret of never having said it while the originals were alive. They are too convenient. To those with a functioning mind, the primes are too nice.
ReplyDeleteIt is clear throughout the play that our memories are imperfect as are our relationships with those we love. These are two problems that the primes address. As we are introduced to the Walter prime we are also introduced to its voracious appetite for knowledge. It presses Marjorie to the point of deceit citing that “It’s just Walter” when in reality it is just a projection. It is important to note that Marjorie projects onto this hologram her feelings for Walter. Tess notices this when she complains that Margorie is nicer to the prime than she is to her. It is a sad realization; Tess is alive, the interactions and memories can still be built yet Margorie still prefers reminiscing with a computer. This trend is seen continuously throughout the play: characters failing to interact with those they care about and instead using the primes of those who they loved to talk about the things the should have talked to that person about. I think that this attempt at some sort of catharsis is so depressing not only for the audience but for the characters as well. We see Jon, someone who has interacted with all of the primes in hopes that he might find some form of happiness, drink heavily. I would argue that he turns to drinking because he knows that the interactions he has with the primes aren’t real and he regrets not communicating these things to the real versions of these people. If we are unable to share our feelings with our loved ones they might as well not be real, for then the entire relationship is one predicated on a facade. It's ironic how we turn to this hyper-advanced and endlessly complicated technology to teach us about our most basic relationships
ReplyDeleteIn Marjorie Prime the characters reinvent their loved ones into what they want them to be. The best example of this is Damien. Damien was their suicidal kid who killed himself. The primes don’t like this thought. The primes only remember the parts that the want to. Marjorie prime says “How nice that we could love somebody”. This is important because a human would think that it is partially their fault, and be sad about it. Every thought that these primes have seems to be a happy one. The primes also reinvent themselves. They want to remember only the pleasant parts about their former selves. In order to feel more human, they ask questions of the living, and tell the living that they will remember what they are told. However they seem to cherry pick the parts of their former selves that they want to be remembered. Marjorie prime suggests that it would be better if she were a more positive person. They only want everything to be nice and lovely. Another way that they reinvent themselves is by actually trying to become more human. As they ask these questions of the living they slightly reinvent the way that they act in order to be more like the human that they represent. We are all like marjorie when it comes to memory retreival because we all tend to supress the bad memories because they disturb us. Our subconcious supresses unpleasant memories and we don’t want to remember them. Existentialism plays into this play because the mood of this play is very forlorn. A concept in this play that I found interesting was the creepy dystopian future vibe I got from this play. The primes seemed like a future we do not want, and they are esentially just robots collecting infornmation on us, much like the internet today.
ReplyDeleteMarjorie Prime explores not only future technology but the effect of memory on relationships through this family. The film makes it evident that memory is an essential part of our lives as it shapes relationships and interactions as well as your own mental stability. As Marjorie begins to lose her memory, she opens up about her past to Walter prime and changes the past every time she talks about it in order to make herself happier. When the fact that we don't really remember the event but the memory of when you’ve last remembered was introduced to me, I was honestly shocked even though it made complete sense. It made me realize that I do elaborate on past memories and sometimes even wonder if they even occurred. Once I begin to divulge into their existence, I stop wanting to think about how true my memories are and avoid further thoughts. This relates back to the film as this is something that the characters are, to an extent, unable to do when speaking with the primes as they force the characters to explore these memories and come to terms with them. We see how Marjorie has reinvented herself and her relationships, mostly due to her amnesia, in her mind through Walter Prime. For example, she decides to choose a younger version of her late husband in order to bring about those pleasant memories of their relationship before the ‘rest’ of their life happened. Through this younger version of Walter, Marjorie is able to cope and forget the less favorable sides of him and her deceased son Damien. As she and Jon feed Walter Prime new information about their and his past, the hologram is able to then retell these stories to Marjorie in a fairytale sort of manner which furthers Marjorie's and the Primes connection and her own mental stability.
ReplyDeleteFirst submitted: February 3, 2020 at 11:53 PM
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Part I of Marjorie Prime begins with 86-year-old Marjorie conversing with the hologram, or “prime,” of her late husband Walter. Because Marjorie suffers from advanced Alzheimer’s, the virtual replica of her husband serves as a memoir for Marjorie to craft. Walter is a blank slate who gradually absorbs information uploaded by Marjorie. He is eventually able to reminisce, converse, and empathize with his living wife. What is amazing is that he “remembers” more than humans whose memories are malleable and transient. As the passage progresses, it becomes clear that Primes have the potential to comfort the bereaved, the old, and the lonely — they function as virtual-reality medicine.
With help of the advanced technology, Marjorie molds the counterfeit version of her ideal husband in her mind and passes her model to the Prime through their conversation. First, Walter Prime takes on the image of a young attractive man with “a good strong jaw.” This is not accurate in terms of time and reality but it is what Marjorie wants him to be. She then tells Walter Prime various happy anecdotes and asks him to repeat them to her, sometimes even asking him to alter the truth in order to make her happier. She rewrites their proposal story, claiming that they enjoyed “Casablanca” instead of the actual movie they watched. She even orders her prime to act a certain way by ordering him to “not show off” when Prime states the Greek meaning for the name Tess. By Marjorie’s actions, Walter Prime is shaped into her ideal husband
The Primes collect information and stories from the living to constantly reinvent themselves. They mimic their responses within the stories they hear by using the same type of humor or sarcasm and similar phrases and sentence structures. Sometimes, they even recite anecdotes for the users from time to time to improve their ability to empathize.
Marjorie barely remembers anything she tells Walter Prime—what remains between Walter and her is a summation of a story constantly iterated and modified to her liking. Similarly, when we try to remember something, we can only recall our last memory of that event/person/interaction. In other words, we can only remember a vague duplicate of a memory rather than its raw self. As time passes, we forget minor details - little by little - and our minds fabricate certain parts of the past. The edited parts gradually evolve into “truth” in our perception.
There is a difference between the way Marjorie and Walter Prime reinvent themselves. Marjorie creates her memory from her images and desires while the Prime repeats the information he collects from others rather than create a real person. The Prime does not have emotional connections while humans feel strong emotions. Humans prefer to remember things in different ways than they really happened. They fantasize, romanticize or glamorize things in their memory as they have “HOPE '' and “WISH,” which enhance their emotions, trigger their imaginations and make them different from machines. In hopes of emotional connections, Marjorie creates Walter Prime, a superficial companion. She builds up the Walter Prime and she actually depends on no one else but herself. Even if the Prime could simulate humans’ thinking and behaviors, their existence has no meaning beyond their programmers’ inputs, as they could not develop the images on their own. Prime reveals the idea of Sartre’s existentialism (“existence precedes essence,” and only existing and acting may bring meaning to your life). Humans’ individualities are determined by their choices and actions. In other words, humans build up meanings for their lives with their own creations and do not count on anyone else. The Primes’ “lives” are meaningless even if they could last forever.