Read the 1st sentence carefully and analyze what bearing does it have on the essay.
Peter Quinn had very little recollection of his ancestors prior to penning this text. The first few words of this piece is, “memory is unique to each of us” which is accurate in many different contexts. What I have experienced in my life is much different than any one else. The story to follow had nothing to do with his firsthand remembrance of events, but rather the investigation into the lives of the people who preceded him. In the same sentence, he makes the argument that memory is inherit, in that it flows through us in our “bloodstream, elixir, narcotic, stimulant, poison, antidote.” This could be interpreted as an innate feeling formed within us before we even see the light of day. He finishes there and turned the text into a first person narrative of his discovery of his family rooting back to Ireland.
There are few sentences in this essay that resemble the poetic language used in the opening one. In fact, the only similar one discusses memory as well, where he states, “Memory is more than a recollection of discrete events … Memory is a reel of endless, haunted gossip, a montage of snippets, remnants, patches…” It captures the attention of his readers, but more importantly, leaves them questioning where he is going with calling memory “an intravenous inheritance.” Basically, he doesn’t see memory as strict as history, but rather the unnoticeable things that could be linked to a specific time. He mentioned when he did this research, he tried to let go of the history behind it. Instead, he wanted to encompass the ordinary of his ancestry. The opening sentence holds much of the story on its shoulders, because without it, it simply becomes another boring tale of how man took the time to learn about his ancestors and now wanted to share those tales with the world. And without it, we wouldn’t understand wholly what Quinn’s intentions were – they weren’t to simply learn about dates and facts, but rather the spirit of the people who down the line created him.
