Reality vs. Perception Theme Analysis

“A Memory” showcases the narrator’s growing awareness of the divide between her internal and external worlds and how they are increasingly at odds. The narrator is obsessed with making observations about the world around her, but through these observations she is also forced to confront the limitations of her own perceptions. Initially, the act of making frames with her fingers makes these limitations literal, as the frames create actual constraints and boundaries around what she sees. The narrator is admittedly reluctant to let go of her preconceived ideas. As a result, the way she watches the world is characterized by a certain “intensity” and “austerity”—that is, she is perpetually alert and eagerly awaiting some kind of important revelation about life, but she’s also terrified that what she’ll learn might shatter her prior assumptions.

In this way, the story brings to light the tension that exists between reality and how one perceives reality. The narrator herself embodies this tension, since she describes herself as both “observer and dreamer.” Throughout the story, Welty repeatedly draws attention to the internal clashes that occur when the narrator becomes conscious of the disconnect between reality and her perception of it. For example, when the boy she loves gets a nosebleed in class, the narrator is faced with the unexpectedly messy reality of his humanness (that he has a body and that it bleeds) and is so shocked by this experience that she faints. Her shock is ultimately due to the fact that the messiness of this reality contrasts so sharply with the way the boy has existed in her imagination—as an abstraction, largely disconnected from the real world. Later on, while she is lying on the beach, the narrator has a similar experience, as she’s ultimately forced to confront yet another ugly reality embodied by the family of bathers: the reality that love sometimes looks chaotic and unappealing. Not only do the bathers’ noisy interactions yank the narrator from the solace of her daydream, but their physical features challenge her ideas about beauty, etiquette, and decency. This is most evident in the “peak of horror” she experiences when the older woman dumps wet sand from her swimsuit. In this way, the story suggests that the narrator struggles to accept reality for what it is, especially when it challenges her hopes and expectations.