Through the Garden of Memory by dylan Fraley

What lead to the Fukushima Disaster

dylanfraley90_ — 2023-10-31 17:53:20 UTC

This article goes into more detail on what lead to the disaster in Fukushima. There was an earthquake that lead to the meltdown of three nuclear reactor cores. This resulted in a mass release of radiation into the atmosphere where the government had to evacuate over 100,000 people as a preventative measures. Nagamatu uses this disaster to exemplify what people go through in an apocalyptic event. He created imagery that allows the reader to feel and experience what people went through using the eye of the survivors.

Important Passage

dylanfraley90_ — 2023-10-31 19:10:31 UTC

"I awake in darkness. I can barely tell if my eyelids are open. I cry for help, for a nurse to turn on the lights, for any other patients beside me to make a sound so I know I’m not alone. I’m no longer in a hospital gown but in what feels like a T-shirt and jeans. There is no breathing tube in my nose, no drip in my vein muddling the pain. The charged air on my bare feet feels like how a child might imagine clouds—substantial enough to rest on yet capable of being traversed, an infinite expanse and cocoon at once. Above, the air feels light on my fingertips, as if gravity has dissipated, but such physics would suggest a grounding force. I wave my hands beneath my feet and cannot detect where my body finds purchase in the dark."

This passage exemplifies the experience of this disaster and some of the aftermaths that the survivors faced. Whether that be time in the hospital from radiation poising or other physical injuries. He describes the air that the character was breathing and how it felt to breathe it in. It demonstrates the confusion after experiencing the disaster and trying to find some type of grounding.

Descartes on Dualism

dylanfraley90_ — 2023-10-31 19:33:30 UTC

Dualism or the Cartesian Dualism is the split between the physical body and the mind. Descartes draws a line between the mental and the physical and says that the mind can exists outside the body. We see this in Through the Garden of Memory when the character calls out into the darkness and starts to think about every memory he has of his parents. He stated that he wanted to relive the memories that he had taken for granted. This is the mind pulling from the memories to help aid in the physical healing an emotional healing of the character.

Monstro Through the Garden of Memory

dylanfraley90_ — 2023-11-02 02:06:17 UTC

In Monstro by Junot Diaz, he explores the aftermath of an apocalyptic world. He explains how scientist try to find a cure for the infected but ultimately fail. He goes into detail about how the zombies feel along the process of getting sicker and exemplifies the physical symptoms of the zombies. He explains how the zombies essentially lose their minds as they get sicker but have a calling to the area of Haiti where the majority of infected were. We can connect this to Through the Garden of Memory as the author explores the aftermath of what could be considered an apocalyptic event and what the survivors went through in the recovery process. The earthquake and the nuclear reactor melt down left people sick as there was radiation sent through the air they breathe. The people that went through the Fukushima accident had to evacuate much similar to those on the island of Haiti. When looking at the dualism in both of these readings we can see the split in the physicality and the mind. One of descartes points was that the mind can live on while the body does but in Monstro we see an example of where the zombies lose control of their mind while their physical presents is still there in Haiti. Comparing this to Through the Garden of Memory its quite the opposite where the physical part is damaged and the characters use their minds to help take them back to a time of relief and peace.