In the first sentence of “In Search of the Banished Children”, the author really grabs the reader because it is such a strong statement. The first sentence is short but powerful and it definitely has a bearing on the rest of the essay as it makes the reader ponder about why memory is so important to this author. It lets the reader know right away what this chapter is going to focus on and how much memory and ‘the past’ means to the author.
The author, in this chapter, keeps questioning his past and his ancestors. Do they really exist? He wonders why his family members do not talk about their pasts and why no one seems to recall what happened in their homeland. This causes memory to become such a big matter for the author because he is trying hard to discover his family’s past when no one is talking about it. His Irish ancestry was confusing since he could not find some of his grandparents’ information and evidence of life. He was trying to understand why the past does not seem to be important to the Irish who are living in America. He explains his interest in memory and its uniqueness in the first sentence and continues it throughout the chapter which is why the sentence had such a pertinence on the chapter.
