Discussion & Reflection

Prompt: Read and carefully analyze the first sentence of “In Search of the Banished Children.” What bearing does it have on the essay?

“Memory is unique to each one of us, it is familial, tribal, communal, the seepage into our minds of other memories, an intravenous inheritance, the past in our bloodstream, elixir, narcotic, stimulant, poison, antidote” (Quinn, 43). This first sentence from “In Search of the Banished Children” from Peter Quinn’s Looking for Jimmy encompasses the idea that memory, while it is an integral part of who people truly are, can leave scars on the psyches of those who have struggled.

For the most part, Quinn seems to deem the Irish Americans as fairly ignorant of their past and heritage. For example, he states that “the poor have traditionally lacked not only the education and time to record their lives, but also lacked the interest” (Quinn, 47). The unfortunate fact is that those who had experienced the Famine and held the memory of the event wanted neither to remember their story nor to inform others of their struggle, probably due to feelings of shame or inferiority.

And who could blame them? The Irish were seen by their British neighbors as a “problem, scourge, infection, perpetual nuisance, and source of national weakness and unrest” (Quinn, 53). And even after leaving the UK, those who had experienced the traumatic Famine were left with “the effects of their own powerlessness, [and] of humiliating dependency on landlords and government officials” (Quinn, 49) in America. The Famine Irish were stuck in a perpetual state of abhorrence by others and poverty, which left scars on their memories of the Famine and all events preceding and following it.

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The first line of the essay says that memories come in various forms. They can be unique to a single person or shared with kin, a tribe, or a community. Memories are also like roads in some sort of way. One memory can lead to another one like a network of paths. Quinn suggests that memories are physical objects like genes passed down from a person’s parents. Each person’s memory bank is their own and unique to them because it is comprised of not only their own memories but the experiences of their ancestors. Quinn mentions that memories are either an “elixir, narcotic, stimulant, poison, [or] antidote.” This implies that a memory can affect the person in beneficial or harmful way. Memories of how a certain family or race was treated or what experiences it had in the past can either drive and motivate a person of that family or race or it can hinder and cripple them. Each person holds the victories and triumphs along with the pain and burdens of a family or race within themselves and must carry them each day.

This opening sentence informs the reader exactly how the various types of memories can affect a person and that it foreshadows what will be discussed throughout the piece. It shows that this essay will be about a person’s own story with influences of memories from their relatives, their friends, or other members of the same race or ethnic group.

Question: Read the first sentence carefully and analyze. What bearing does it have on the essay?

“Memory is unique to each one of us, and it is familial, tribal, communal, the seepage into our minds of other memories, an intravenous inheritance, the past in our bloodstream, elixir, narcotic, stimulant, poison, antidote.”

This sentence draws the line between reality and memory. Different people can remember the exact same moment in their own unique way and that memory stays with them their entire life. These memories can also effect people in different ways. People tend to think back on certain moments that can trigger an emotional reaction even after the fact. This is what Quinn is saying when he lists of elixir…antidote. Although multiple people may share memories of certain events or moments they have their own personal perception of what happened.

Throughout his essay Quinn talks about trying to trace his family history and their experience with the famine. Family history is often told by word of mouth from one generation to the next. Some may say that it is the responsibility of the older generation to pass on the history to the younger generation. When it comes to recounting huge historical events this idea of memories can make it more complicated. Perception and emotional connection to events can play a huge role in how people tell their story. This can make it hard to get the facts strait. Quinn found in his own research that there really were not many primary sources available relating to the Famine and all of the Irish people who came to the states. Tragic events like this can often create painful memories which survivors prefer not to recount. This can make it hard to paint a complete picture. It is a shame that these memories have faded through the generations but maybe it is better that way. It is not always good to dwell on moments of pain and suffering.

Julia Saccamano- Response to: Quinn makes a comparison between slave trade and the holocaust and famine emigration early in the essay on to reject it later. Why?

Broken leg or amputation, both are extremely painful and debilitating. However, despite them both being injuries it is hard to compare the two. The months of repairing a broken bone is nothing when compared to the years of healing and adjusting to the disability of a lost limb. Similarly, while the Holocaust and the Irish Famine can both be considered injuries to ethnic groups they can hardly be compared. In the Essay: “In Search of Banished Children” Irish- American writer Peter Quinn makes a similar point. In his work, Quinn discusses Irish history, shares their struggles, and recounts his own family’s history. He also discusses the Holocaust and why the two shouldn’t be equated.

Many do find ways to compare the Holocaust and Irish famine. In his essay Quinn quotes Robert James Scally, a historian, when he compares Irish emigration to the stuffed boxcars of the Holocaust (48). Yes, in both cases there was a large migration of people. In both cases millions died. In both cases survivors didn’t wish to relive it through discussion (47). However, while over a million Irish died in the famine (44), over 5 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. While Irish survivors struggled to find ways to feed themselves and make money so as not to starve, Jewish survivors struggled to not get separated and murdered (in addition to not starving). While Irish immigrants did not wish to discuss the famine and its effects, the public was extremely aware. During the Holocaust there were people who denied its even occurrence. Moreover, the Irish famine was an environmental cause sparked by plant disease… The Holocaust was a deliberate horror that was caused and enforced by every single Jew’s murder. The Irish faced apathetic outsiders, the Jews faced murderous soldiers.

In his essay, Quinn makes all of these points which is why he declares:“ The Irish Famine of the 1840s and the Jewish Holocaust of the 1940s are very different events and should not be confused or equated”(53).

Prompt: Quinn makes a comparison between the slave trade and the Holocaust and the famine emigration early in the essay only to reject it later. Why?

“In the concentration camps, we discovered this whole universe where everyone has his place. The killer came to kill, and the victims came to die.” — Elie Wiesel

In his short story “In Search of the Banished Children,” Peter Quinn shares his findings about his personal Irish ancestry and connects the experiences of his ancestors to the experiences of other Irish immigrants in New York during the 1840s. Quinn goes into detail about the struggles faced by Irish immigrants — a struggle that was so terrible, many immigrants refused to talk about it. Quinn saw the experience as so physically and mentally debilitating that he describes the famine emigration in the words of historian Robert James Scaly, who stated that the event has “more resemblance to the slave trade or the boxcars of the Holocaust…” (48).

However, later in the text, Quinn writes, “The Irish Famine of the 1840s and the Jewish Holocaust of the 1940s are very different events and should not be confused or equated” (53).  Quinn retracts his previous statement because of the differences in severity of suffering and social awareness between the famine emigration and the Holocaust. Quinn says, “As terrible and traumatic as the Famine was, as formative of all that followed in Irish and Irish-American history, it was not [the Holocaust]” (53).

This realization is supported by Quinn. He brings up that the famine was merely a natural catastrophe and implies that the Holocaust was worse because it was a human-made disaster which created a large magnitude of suffering and plight. The organizational power during the Holocaust sought to eradicate all Jews — unapologetically and by any means. Quinn says, the “Holocaust was a death sentence leveled against every Jewish man, woman and child under German rule” (53). To make matters worse, unlike the Irish famine emigration, the Holocaust was bluntly denied by Nazi apologists (54).

The genocide that poisoned the bodies of Jews and the minds of Nazis, took the lives of millions (born and unborn) and left behind pits of bones and walking skeletons was being outright denied. Imagine having survivors so shaken, like Elie Wiesel, they choose silence while the inflictors of the pain shout denial — not regret or apologies … denial. Quinn says, “Such a challenge was never made against the Famine” (54).

Quinn has a personal connection to the stories of the Irish immigrants who came to the United States after the Great Famine. Despite this connection, Quinn is aware of the differences between the Great Famine and the Holocaust. Quinn tells the reader that the sufferings of the Jews during and after the Holocaust were so much greater than that of the Irish during the famine. “No exceptions. None” (53).

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.

 

Henry Burby

2/6/16

HNRS 10201

Journal entry for Quinn’s “The Search for the Banished Children”

Quinn lumps memory together with heritage, the multi-sourced framework of real and imagined history on which a culture rests. We are born into one or more of these, and we keep them in our lives because, while our true memories make up who we are, the rest makes up what we are. It can be comforting to be able to say “I am Catholic. I am Irish.” These categories allow us to connect with others who share them. The closest of these groups have had more hardship, which forced them to close ranks. Irish Americans are bound together both former poverty and the trauma of starvation. As distance from the pain grows, so does romanticism. Quinn’s mother avoids her history because it is too painful. His father loves the old stories, but they are at least tempered by half-truths and exaggerations. Poverty is like war. Looking on from the sidelines, or back across time, it can seem heroic or romantic, but it is very different for those who actually experience it. it is only because we can look back at suffering that we can see fun in it. As in the Eugene O’Neil quote, actual day to day suffering is just sad.

 

 

 

The first sentence of “In Search of the Banished Children” is a stand-alone paragraph, and it frames the essay so that the recollection of the past Famine Migration of the 1840s is less of a discussion of a historical event but a discussion of Irish inheritance for Peter Quinn. There is no evidence to show for the great grandparents of his that migrated to America in desperation and built themselves into White America but such is the “plight of the poor throughout history.” Memories of the past run through our veins influencing out actions and reactions whether we are cognizant of them or not, and the histories that are too painful to recall and reminisce over are banished to our subconscious where they remain only to identify our roots, although we may not necessarily identify with them. Quinn’s Irish roots come from “people beyond [his] knowing” but their creation of an American identity for themselves resides in the Catholic school he attended and the union his father was a part of.

It’s interesting—every time one recalls a memory, it is inherently modified, if only slightly, by the recollection and the manner in which it was recollected in the moment. Quinn evokes a paradox in that memory is “unique to each one of us,” yet it is “familial, tribal [and] communal.” We inherit our history from our ancestry, in whatever manner that may be, and while we can never forget, we choose if we want to remember.