Emotional Remembering The Pragmatics of National Memory

Emotional Remembering: The Pragmatics of National Memory
Author(s): Geoffrey M. White

Source: Ethos, Vol. 27, No. 4, The Pragmatic Turn in Psychological Anthropology (Dec., 1999),
pp. 505-529
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
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Emotional
Remembering:
T h e
Pragmatics
of N ational
M emory
GEOFFREY M . WHIT E
ABST RACT T h is
paper
examines
spaces
in between th e "out
th ere"
of
collective
representation
and th e "in h ere"
of personal
cognition
and emotion
by f ocusing
on acts
of public
remem-
brance th at are at once individual and
collective, personal
and
national.
Reporting
on research carried out at th e U.S. national
memorial to th e
bombing
attack at Pearl Harbor th at drew
America into World War
II,
th e
paper analy zes
th e discourse
of
"survivors" wh o
present personal
stories in th e memorial con-
text. T h e
analy sis argues
th at a
repertoire of
discursive strate-
gies f unctions
to emotionalize national
narrative,
wh ile at th e
same time works to nationalize
personal pasts.
O
~ne of th e core
problems
of
psy ch ological anth ropology -
possibly
th e core
problem
in recent decades-h as been th e
relation of individual selves to th e collective
representa-
tions and
productions
of culture. From Durkh eim and Freud
to Geertz and
Spiro,
th is
relationsh ip
h as been
conceptual-
ized in terms of interior worlds of individual
th ough t
and
f eeling
set in
oppo-
sition to collective or "cultural"
sy stems
of sh ared
meaning. Despite
wide
th eoretical dif f erences
concerning
th e kinds of variables one
migh t
need f or
an
adequate th eory
of social
action,
most modern
paradigms
h ave
separated
th e
"psy ch ological"
f rom th e
"cultural,"
and th e "individual" f rom th e "col-
lective." In th is
paper
I want to
complicate
th ese binaries
by examining
th e
spaces
in between:
practices
th at traverse th e "out th ere" of collective
rep-
resentation and th e "in h ere" of
personal cognition
and emotion. I f ocus
par-
ticularly
on acts of remembrance th at
represent
and enact national
identity
in
perf ormative
acts th at are at once individual and
collective, personal
and
national.
In line with th e
"pragmatic
turn" identif ied
by
O'N ell and
Desjarlais
in
th eir introduction to th is
collection,
th e
investigation
of
representational
Eth os
27(4):505-529. Copy righ t
?
2000,
American
Anth ropological
Association.
506 ? ET HOS
practices requires
attention not
only
to cultural
texts,
but to th e contexts
with in wh ich th ose texts are marked as
signif icant
f or individual lives and
identities. T o attend to both text and context is to notice th at neith er is
f ixed or
singular,
but
usually
in
play , being
made
up
or routinized in th e
course of interaction.
So,
f or
example,
h istorical narratives as texts h ave
no determinate
meaning
and
certainly
no
given
emotive
signif icance
f or
individuals. In
contrast,
acts of
narrating
h istorical events are
alway s
ac-
companied by
metacommunicative
signs
th at index relations between
speaker, audience(s)
and events
represented, including
emotions th at
mark th e involvement of
speakers
and audiences in th e narrated
past.
T h e
metaph or
of internalization is of ten used to
conceptualize
th e
process wh ereby
cultural
sy mbols
and texts obtain emotional
signif icance
f or th e
individual, presupposing separate sph eres
of collective culture and
individual
psy ch ology .
In th is
metaph or, sy mbols
or texts become
per-
sonal wh en
th ey
are
interpreted
and
processed by
individual
minds,
wh ere
th ey
are inf lected
by
th e
experiential memory
of th e
cognizing subject.
But
wh at is it th at is internalized? Cultural
meaning,
like th e
self , emerges
in
dialectic relations between minds and oth er
persons
and texts. T h e liabil-
ity
of th e internalization
metaph or
is th at it directs attention
away
f rom
practices
of
representation
th at f ix
(h owever momentarily )
th e relevance
and value of
perf ormed
identities f or individuals and collectivities. T exts
obtain th eir cultural
signif icance
in
public sph eres
of interaction wh ere
th ey
are f ramed
by
metacommunicative markers th at
signal
th eir value f or
interlocutors, especially
th eir relevance f or
key
social identities.
T h rough out
th e 20th
century ,
national identities h ave been
among
th e most
powerf ul
and contested f oci f or social and emotional identif ica-
tion. And with in th e arena of
nation-making,
one of th e most common
means of
creating
national consciousness h as been h istorical narra-
tive-stories about th e collective
past th at,
wh en
repeated
and conven-
tionalized,
become national h istories.
So,
f or
example,
in a recent
essay
on
emergent
nationalisms in
postcolonial M elanesia,
Joh n
Kelly asks,
"Wh at makes a nation if a state doesn't
(and perh aps,
even if a state
does)?"
T o th is h e
answers, simply :
"A narrative"
(1995:257). Kelly 's
view
resonates with Benedict Anderson's
(1983) widely
cited
concept
of th e
nation as
"imagined community ."
Both
emph asize
th e
sy mbolic
and con-
structed nature of national
identities,
enabled
by
cultural f orms and com-
municative media
capable
of
reach ingdispersed populations.
Yet,
if lef t at th e level of narrative as
text,
h ow is it th at certain narra-
tives
gain
truth
value, repeatability ,
and emotional f orce? Even
th ough
nationalisms h ave been of interest
precisely
because
th ey
evoke
strong
f eelings,
th e dominant th eories of nationalism h ave f ocused less on th e
f ormation of national
subjectivities
th an on th e
cultural-sy mbolic
bases of
sh ared
identity
and discourse structures th at enf orce
ideological h egem-
Emotional
Remembering ?
507
ony .
How do national narratives
engender
a sense of
belonging
or
acquire
emotional valence f or individual
speakers
and audiences? T h is
question
is
less about national
identity
as a cultural construct th an about
processes
of
identif ication th rough
wh ich national narrative and self narrative interre-
late
(Bruner 1990;
Och s and
Capps 1996).
N ational narrative is
actively produced
in social contexts wh ere
meaning, value,
and emotion are all at risk. In th ese
contexts,
collective
h istories and sentiments are
interactively
f ormed as
people variously
learn, argue over, celebrate,
and resist
representations
of th e
past.
In th e
analy sis
th at
f ollows,
I
explore
th e
production
of national
identity
and
emotion in contexts wh ere
personal
stories and collective h istories inter-
twine. How are th ese
genres
of
personal
and collective discourse marked
in
ordinary talk,
and h ow do
th ey
inf orm and validate one anoth er? In
addressing
th is
question,
th is
paper
considers two discursive means used
to
interpolate personal
narrative and national
h istory : (1)
th e use of
pro-
nouns
(I
and
we),
and oth er indexical
signs
to link
personal
and collective
perspective
in narrative
perf ormance (Benveniste 1966;
Urban
1989);
and
(2)
th e use of
personal
stories as
allegories
to
embody
and emotionalize
national h istories.
If we are
going
to ask wh at stories
get "internalized,"
we must also ask
wh at stories
get
"externalized." Wh o is
telling
wh at stories to
wh om,
in
wh at
contexts,
h ow
of ten,
with wh at ef f ects? M ore
importantly
f or th is
paper,
h ow do certain externalizations become f ixed
th rough repetition
and institutionalization such th at
th ey gain
th e status of collective or cul-
tural texts? Silverstein and Urban
(1996)
use th e term entextualized to
describe th e routinization of discourse
th rough repetition
and/or institu-
tionalization. In th eir
view,
"entextualized discourse .. . can maintain its
status as emblematic of th e culture
only
if th ere are
periodic reperf or-
mances or
re-embeddings
in actual discourse contexts th at count as
pro-
jectively 'th e
same'"
(1996:13).
Here I look at th e
process
of entextualization in one
particular, h igh ly
institutionalized site: th e
public
memorial to th e
bombing
of Pearl Harbor
th at
propelled
th e United States into World War II. T h e
public
recitation
of
key
moments of th e national
past
works to
solidif y
and emotionalize
collective
h istory .
In
particular,
th e voice of "survivors"
play s
a
key
role
in both
entextualizing
and
personalizing
national
memory .
Survivor dis-
course is
part
of most memorial sites. At th e Pearl Harbor
memorial,
a
small number of
military
survivors of th e attack now volunteer to tell th eir
stories on a
regular
basis. I f ocus on one
particular
veteran's
public pres-
entation of h is
experience, drawing
on interviews and observations con-
ducted
during
several
y ears
of on-and-of f f ieldwork at th e memorial.
As institutions devoted to social acts of
remembrance, public
memo-
rials would seem to be almost th e
prototy pic
Durkh eimian institution.
508 ? ET HOS
Self -consciously
constructed f or th e
purpose
of
curating
collective mem-
ory ,
memorials
employ
all manner of semiotic means to
convey messages
about th e sh ared
past
marked as both
politically
and
emotionally signif i-
cant.
Yet,
in
today 's complex
social
spaces
traversed
by
a multitude of
publics,
memorials are as
likely
to elicit boredom and contestation as
any -
th ing
else.
How, th en,
does h istorical discourse create and sustain national
sentiment? In th ese
contexts,
acts of
"remembering" bringpersonal
mem-
ory
and collective
h istory
into th e same discursive
space, th ereby working
to
simultaneously
emotionalize
h istory
and nationalize
understandings
of
self and
community .
Approach ing
national narrative not as
text,
but as
interactively pro-
duced social
understanding
illuminates th e
interplay
of
institutional, cog-
nitive,
and emotional f orces th at make th em
up (Holquist 1981;
Wertsch
1985). Having
said
th is,
culture
th eory today
h as made much of th e unsta-
ble, partial,
and contested nature of cultural
representations,
wh ile sh ow-
ing
less interest in
processes
th at essentialize and emotionalize dominant
constructions. As
Crapanzano describes,
selves are
alway s emergent
in
social
interaction, alth ough
much of th at interaction is concerned
pre-
cisely
with
producing momentary
"arrests" in th e dialectics of self h ood
(1990).
For national
selves,
some of th e most
powerf ul
arrests occur in
public spaces
devoted to
institutionalizing
national memories.
Beginning
with th e observation th at memorial
spaces
are
f requently h igh ly
emotion-
alized
spaces,
I look at th e
pragmatic
role of
emotion,
and of
emotionality ,
in
processes
of identif ication.
I take
up
th ese issues in th e context of one of America's sacred sites
of war
memory :
th e national memorial to th e Pearl Harbor attack th at
killed over
2,000 people
and drew th e United States into World War II.1
T h e Pearl Harbor
memorial-f ormally
named th e USS Arizona M emorial
af ter th e sunken
battlesh ip
Arizona th at blew
up, killing 1,177
crew-
serves as a monumental reminder of th e attack and th e death s associated
with it. T h e memorial and its visitor center make
up
a
complex
institution
th at tells its stories to diverse audiences
using multiple representational
strategies.
T h e
presence
of Pearl Harbor survivors wh o tell th eir stories at
th e memorial on a
day -to-day
basis
personif ies
national
h istory , reminding
th ose wh o move
th rough
th e memorial th at its stories are about events
with in
livingmemory ,
even if
just
on its
very edge,
about to
pass
into th e
realm of
textually
mediated
h istory . M y purpose
h ere is to ask
h ow,
in th is
context,
survivor discourse works to create a sense of
personal,
emotional
participation
in th e M emorial's
h istory .
SURVIVOR DISCOURSE
Given th e
power
of war to af f ect wh ole
populations,
nations
every -
wh ere h ave undertaken to institutionalize war
memory (or
war
memories)
Emotional
Remembering
?
509
in th e service of national
imagination.
With in th ese
sph eres
of remem-
brance,
th e voices of th ose wh o
experienced
war are
among
th e most
prominent
and resonant over time.
Frequently
recorded and
projected
on
a
larger
national screen
th rough f ilms, books,
and mass
media,
such voices
speak
about national and
global
events in th e idiom of
personal experi-
ence. For some wh o h ave lived
th rough particularly intense,
traumatic
moments of war and wh olesale
killing
such as th e Holocaust or th e atomic
bombings
of Hirosh ima and
N agasaki,
such events can become lif e-def in-
ing moments, establish ing
th eir identities as "survivors." As th e
genera-
tion of survivors
passes away ,
th eir
experiences
are of ten retained in th e
f orm of
f irst-person
narratives
represented
in
popular
media and
key
sites
of
public memory .
N ation-states
f requently
work to institutionalize th ese
sorts of survivor narrative in sites such as th e U.S. Holocaust M emorial
M useum or th e Hirosh ima Peace M emorial
M useum-places
th at double
as sites of
pilgrimage
and as centers of
public
education.
Even
th ough
combat veterans are also survivors of
war,
th eir
experi-
ences are not
usually packaged
in th is
way , perh aps
because battlef ield
experiences
h ave
long
been normalized
by
conventional
military
h istories.
One of th e
exceptions
to th is is th e
group
of veterans wh o lived
th rough
th e Pearl Harbor attack. For
th em,
th e survivor
identity
is institutionalized
in a national
organization
of th e same
name,
"Pearl Harbor
Survivors,"
with local
ch apters
all over th e
country . M embersh ip
rules state th at
any -
one wh o was
serving
in th e
military
on th e island of Oah u on December
7,
1941, is
eligible
to
join.
Pearl Harbor Survivors constitute th emselves in
much th e same
way
th at all veterans'
organization
do: with local
meetings,
reunions, anniversary ceremonies,
and
march ing
in
parades,
as well as
distinctive emblems and f orms of dress.
T oday h owever, nearly
60
y ears
af ter th e
bombing,
Pearl Harbor sur-
vivors are a
declining population. Indeed, th ey
of ten
joke
about th eir
age,
talking
about th emselves as
"endangered species"
and so f orth . For th e
Arizona
M emorial,
Pearl Harbor survivors are a
privileged constituency ,
h olding
national ceremonies th ere
every
f ive
y ears (th e
last took
place
December
7, 1996,
on th e 55th
anniversary
of th e
bombing).
On a more
regular basis,
a h andf ul of Pearl Harbor survivors
living
in Honolulu volun-
teer th eir time at th e M emorial to talk about th eir
experiences
and
h elp
out in oth er
way s.
On
any given day ,
two or th ree survivors
may
be f ound
on th e
grounds
of th e visitor center
givingtalks, answeringquestions,
and
doing
various
jobs
f or th e Park Service.
In th e context of th e
M emorial,
survivor stories are
simultaneously
personal
recollections and constitutive of
larger
narratives of nation. It is
th is
ambiguity ,
in th is
context,
th at is
signif icant.
Survivors re-create "h is-
toric" events in th e idiom of
personal experience, giving
collective
h istory
meaning th rough
th e recitation of individual lif e stories. In th ese
contexts,
510 * ET HOS
personal
stories become
allegories
of national
agency .
M uch of th e talk of
th e survivors at th e M emorial interweaves collective
h istory
and
personal
reminiscence in
way s
th at alternate between th e ref erential
sty le
of
report-
age
and th e conf essional
sty le
of testimonials. In
speaking
f rom th e van-
tage point
of
experience,
survivors talk in th e conversational f ormats of
ordinary speech ,
rath er th an in th e
generalized
distillations of
h istory
texts,
educational
lectures,
or
documentary
f ilms.
T h e
presence
of survivor
testimony
in th e context of a h istoric site
and
memorial, alongside
museum
exh ibits, h istory texts,
a
documentary
f ilm,
and
interpretive
lectures
by
th e N ational Park
Service, inevitably
calls attention to contrasts between
popular
notions of
"h istory "
and
"memory " (Gedi
and Elam
1996;
Linenth al
1995;
N ora
1989).
T h e distinc-
tion between
prof essionalized h istory
and
personal
recollection lies be-
h ind th e common
perception
th at survivors' talk
is,
at
base, personal.2
T h eir involvement in th eir stories is communicated in a
variety
of
way s,
including
f eatures of voice and emotion th at index connections between
th e
subjectivity
of th e
speaker
and
objects
of
representation.
M EM ORIALIZIN G: M AKIN G A CON T EXT
Originally f orged
in th e context of a nation
mobilizing
f or
war, images
of Pearl Harbor continue to be
produced,
f irst and
f oremost,
f or national
audiences-as a means of
imagining
th e nation as a moral
community .
T h e Arizona M emorial is
operated by
th e N ational Park Service and th e
U.S.
N avy
as a national
park
site with in an active
military
base. Wh ile
Americans are
empowered
to voice th eir
opinions
about h ow national h is-
tory
is
presented
th ere
(th rough ,
f or
example,
letters to
Congress),3
th e
memorial is
part
of Honolulu's international tourist
economy
and h osts
up
to
4,000
visitors a
day , spanning
a wide
cultural, national,
and
generational
diversity .
One of th e dilemmas th at conf ronts custodians of th e M emorial
(by
wh ich I mean th e Park
Rangers
and veteran volunteers wh o
interpret
h is-
tory th ere)
is th at of
creating
a context with in wh ich statements about
Pearl Harbor
acquire
cultural
importance
or
personal meaning.
How do
acts of
representation
become moments of "remembrance"? Af ter
all,
wh en th e name Pearl Harbor f irst entered th e lexicon of American
popular
culture,
it was as an event not to be
f orgotten,
with wartime
songs, f ilms,
and news media
urging
th e national
public
to
self -consciously
"Remember
Pearl Harbor" f or th e war ef f ort.
Park
Rangers
and veteran volunteers of ten talk about th e
problem
of
convey ing
th e
importance
of th e M emorial to tourist
audiences,
of
h aving
to counteract th e mindset of
people
wh o see th e
place
as
just
one more
recreational
stop
on a
busy itinerary
of
sigh tseeing
in Hawai'i's
tropical
Emotional
Remembering
* 511
paradise. Any one viewing
th e scene at th e Visitor Center on a
busy day
as
th rongs
of vacationers mill
about, taking
in th e h arbor views and museum
exh ibits as
th ey
await th eir turn to see th e
documentary
f ilm and take a
boat to th e M emorial can
readily
understand th e
dif f iculty
of
def ining
th e
space
as a sacred site and burial
place (Kelly 1996).4
For th ose wh o work at th e
M emorial,
and
many
oth ers wh o
visit,
th ere
is more at stake h ere th an
just reminding
tourists to be
respectf ul.
T h ere
is th e
ongoing
need to valorize models of th e
past
th at are th emselves in
jeopardy
in th e
larger culture,
and th at
require just
th e kind of
public
af f irmation af f orded
by
a
state-sponsored
memorial site. In th is
setting,
perf ormative
acts of remembrance contextualize
people's
lives in relation
to th e
imagined
communities of nations
(instantiated, partly , by
th e small
audiences
moving th rough
th e
M emorial). By def inition, representations
of Pearl Harbor in th is context take on th e
signif icance
of
of f icial,
collective
h istory .
T h e
interpolation
of th e
personal
in h istorical narrative simulta-
neously gives experience
collective
signif icance
and collective
repre-
sentations
personal meaning.
T h is is one reason th at
representational
practices
of th e memorial are so
closely
monitored and
regulated (eliciting
more letters to
Congressional
of f ices th an
any
oth er location in th e N a-
tional Park Service and N ational M onument
sy stem [see
Linenth al
1993;
Wh ite
1997b]).
It is also
wh y
th e site is
continually
described as a
deeply
emotional
place.
One of th e most
commonly
h eard ref rains in
descriptions
of th e M e-
morial is th at it evokes
strong
emotions. T h is is
especially
so f or Pearl
Harbor
survivors,
World War II
veterans,
and Americans of th e war
gen-
eration
(and
th eir
kin).
Wh en we
survey ed responses
to th e M emorial's
documentary
f ilm in terms of a set of af f ect
categories,
f or
example,
one of
th e clearest
f indings
was th at older Americans
report
a
greater intensity
of
f eeling,
across th e wh ole
spectrum
of emotions we asked about
(Wh ite
1997a).
At th e center of th is
emotionality
is th e
experience
of death and
loss,
signif ied
most
poignantly by
th e sunken
sh ip
as tombf or th e crew of th e
Arizona,
most of wh ose bodies were never extracted.
(see Inglis 1993).5
One of th e
major "interpretive
th emes"
promoted by
th e Park
Service,
especially th rough
a
documentary
f ilm sh own to all
visitors,
is th at th e
M emorial is a
place "deservingspecial respect."
In
draf ting
a standardized
set of remarks f or use
by
Park
Rangers introducing
th e f ilm to
visitors, park
h istorian Daniel M artinez ch aracterized th e M emorial in
precisely
th ese
terms:
T h eM emorial itself deserves
special respect.
T h e
sh ip
af terall is th e f inal
restingplace
f or th e crew of th e Arizona. It is th eir tomb. Out of
respect
f or th is
cemetery -like
atmosph ere,
we ask th at
y ou keep y our
voices low wh ile at th e M emorial. It is a
place
wh ere
y ou
can ref lect on th e
past
and
contemplate
th e f uture.
[M artinez 1997]
512 ? ET HOS
Having
th us def ined th e memorial context as th at of a
cemetery
or
tomb
(rath er
th an as a
landmark, museum,
or th eme
park),
th ese
pref atory
remarks turn to
emotions,
f urth er
establish ing
th e nature of th e context
by telling
th e audience th at
th ey
are
likely
to react to th e M emorial and its
h istory
with
strong
emotions:
Formost of
y ou today ,
th is
journey
back to th e
day s
of 1941 will
probably
evoke some
kind
of f eeling
or emotion:
sadness, despair, may be
even
anger.
Places wh ere
tragic
events unf olded
may
evoke such
f eelings.
Forth e
people
of
Hawaii,
th e United States
and th e
world,
lives were
ch anged
f orever. World WarII was now
truly global.
Wh en
th e smoke and th e dust of th e warsettled in
1945, nearly
55 million
people
were dead.
[M artinez 1997, emph asis
added]
T h ese ref erences to th e
emotionality
of Pearl Harbor
presuppose
a
background th eory
of emotions as
responses
to
important events,
with
specif ic
emotions
signif y ingspecif ic ty pes
of events. Wh ile
allowing
f or a
range
of dif f erent
emotions, and, by implication,
dif f erent
interpretations
of th e events th at evoke
th em,
th ese remarks noneth eless ch aracterize th e
h istory
at h and as
"tragic,"
and
specif y
"sadness" and
"despair"
as
likely
responses,
with
"anger"
a lesser
possibility .
Here ref erences to emotion
f unction as communicative markers th at index th e salience of certain
statements f or th eir
audiences, indicating
th at
th ey acquire
th eir
signif i-
cance in relation to
existing,
valorized cultural models.
T h e discussion th at f ollows
explores
some of th e
way s
th at
expres-
sions of emotion in th is context work to link
interlocutors,
social
catego-
ries,
and
represented
events. N ote th at th e text in th e above
passage
moves
f rom a list of emotions to a list of identities
(sadness, despair,
and
anger
to
"th e
people
of
Hawaii,
th e United
States,
and th e
world").
T h is
juxtaposi-
tion-in th is case between emotions and an
expanding
circle of involve-
ment th at
ultimately
makes th e memorial a
global
memorial-is indicative
of th e discursive f unction of emotions as markers of th e relevance of nar-
rative f or
speakers
and audiences.
N o
analy sis
of th e textual
productions
of th e M emorial will reveal th e
diverse
way s
audiences
compreh end
th em in relation to th eir own lif e-
worlds.
Certainly
some do not
respond
at all to talk of
"tragic
events." But
f or
many ,
th e of f icial Park Service def inition of th e situation as one
likely
to evoke
personal f eelings
f oretells a broad
range
of af f ective
responses.
In
museums and oth er
public places
wh ere sh ared
h istory
is
interactively
produced,
h istorical discourse
f requently
entails small acts of identif ica-
tion,
in wh ich th e
subjectivity
of viewers and
objects
of
interpretation
come into
mutually contingent
relations. One of th e
primary
means
th rough
wh ich th is is
accomplish ed
at th e Arizona M emorial is
th rough
Pearl Harbor survivors
wh o, by
th eir
very presence, embody
th e Pearl Har-
bor
story
as
livingh istory .
In th is
way
th e
past
becomes
present
and
per-
sonal, someth ing
th at can be
engaged
as
part
of one's own interactive
Emotional
Remembering
* 513
experience-if
not one's
ordinary lif e,
at least as
part
of one's vacation to
exotic lands such as Hawai'i.
SURVIVOR VOICES: IN DEXIN G N AT ION AL SUBJECT IVIT Y
As
part
of
my
work at th e
M emorial,
I h ave become f amiliar with a
number of th e Pearl Harbor survivors wh o volunteer th ere.
Beginning
in
1994 with th e assistance of
M arjorie Kelly
and th e
support
of a
grant
f rom
th e Wenner-Gren
Foundation,
I recorded about 40 h ours of
public presen-
tations and individual interviews with survivors. Since th at
time,
I h ave
pursued
more
in-depth
interviews with th ree of
th em, discussing
th eir sto-
ries,
th eir own views of th eir activities at th e
M emorial,
and th eir lif e h is-
tories, including alway s
th e events of th e Pearl Harbor attack.
As an
anth ropologist entering
th is
h igh ly
narrativized
space, talking
to individuals wh o h ave taken on
personae
as witnesses to
h istory
and wh o
are interviewed
f requently by journalists, writers,
and video
makers, my
interactions with veterans
may
also be
interpreted
as one more occasion
f or
telling
of ten
repeated
stories.6 Even wh en
f raming
an interview as f o-
cusing
on "lif e
h istory ,"
th e
topic
of Pearl Harbor-th e events of th e
day
and its
consequences-of ten predominates.
It
may
seem ironic th at war memories th at
may
be
traumatic,
re-
pressed,
and h idden are also th e
object
of
public perf ormance. T h is,
h ow-
ever,
is
precisely
th e
point. M any
wh o lived
th rough
th e Pearl Harbor
attack continue to h ave
dif f iculty talking
about th eir
experiences,
and
only
over time h ave
begun
to discuss th em.
And,
in
f act,
a number of th e indi-
viduals wh o volunteer at th e M emorial describe a transitional
point
in th eir
lives wh en
th ey began
to talk
openly
about Pearl Harbor. For
some,
th e
50th
anniversary
of th e attack in 1991 was such a transitional moment.
For
oth ers, f inding
th e Pearl Harbor Survivors Association
(PHSA),
or be-
ginning
to work at th e Arizona M emorial
proved
to be th e
enabling expe-
rience.
Each survivor wh o volunteers at th e M emorial h as
developed
a dis-
tinctive set of activities f or
engaging people. T h ey
all wear a
green
Park
Service sh irt and Pearl Harbor Survivor
cap
with th e words "Pearl Harbor
Survivor" inscribed on th e side
(alth ough
th ese are also
h igh ly
individual-
ized with
pins
and
badges
of all
sorts).
M ost will assist in
taking
tickets and
introducing
th e
documentary
f ilm as
groups
take th eir turns
f iling
into th e
th eater. Oth ers
develop
individual routines. Rich ard Fiske's
sty le,
f or ex-
ample,
is to walk th e
grounds
of th e visitor center with a
th ree-ring
binder
f ull of
ph otos
of h is war
experiences.
T h e binder mediates h is interaction
with
people
wh o
engage
h im in
conversation,
of ten
posing
f or
ph otos.
In
some
cases,
individual survivors h ave
prepared organized
talks f or
presen-
tation on a
regular
basis in th e small museum. Of
th ese,
some
present
514 * ET HOS
personal
stories wh ile oth ers
give
h istorical overviews of th e events of th e
attack, detailing
casualties and bomb
damage.
One of th e
personal talks,
f or
example,
is
given by
Reverend Joe
M organ, ch aplain
of th e Oah u
ch ap-
ter of th e
PHSA,
wh o tells a
story
about a
postwar
encounter with th e
Japanese
commander of th e
attackingplanes (wh o, incredibly ,
h ad h imself
converted to
Ch ristianity ). M organ's story
is
presented
as a
parable
f or th e
transf ormation of
anger
and h atred to
f orgiveness.
Consider now th e
way
one
survivor,
Rich ard
(Dick) Husted, presents
Pearl Harbor
h istory
(and
h is
story )
f or museum audiences. In
discussing
h is museum
presentations,
I
compare
h is recollections of th e attack in
several distinct
contexts, beginning
with h is
presentations
to museum
audiences,
and th en
drawingupon
inf ormation f rom interviews with h im
and f rom a
videotape
in wh ich Dick Husted tells h is
story
as one of several
survivor recollections recorded
by
th e N ational Park Service in 1996.
Dick Husted is a retired
navy
commander wh ose
sh ip,
th e
battlesh ip
USS
Oklah oma,
suf f ered th e
second-greatest
number of casualties in th e
attack
(at
least 429
killed).
Since
1991,
Husted h as been
volunteering
at
th e M emorial two
day s
a week
during
th e six month s of th e
y ear
h e lives
in Honolulu. He h as a
prepared
talk th at h e
presents
in th e museum twice
each
morning, standing
in f ront of a
h uge
aerial
ph otograph
taken
by
one
of th e
Japanese planes looking
down on
"battlesh ip
row" under attack. As
h e stands bef ore th e
ph otograph
with
pointer
in
h and,
h e
quickly
attracts
th e attention of visitors
circulating th rough
th e museum. A cluster of
peo-
ple gath er
around
h im, listening
h ard to h is
sof t-spoken
narration. Some
drif t in and out of th e
listening area,
wh ile oth ers skirt th e
edges.7 T y pi-
cally
10 to 20
people
will remain attentive
th rough
th e entire 45-minute
narrative. Some leave wh en
th ey
are called
away
to view th e
documentary
bef ore
th ey
board th e boats to see th e memorial.
T h e
panoptic
aerial view of th e scene of th e attack
display ed
in th e
museum
ph otograph
is well-suited to th e kind of f act-driven h istorical
overview th at Husted
presents, using
a
pointer
to indicate
sh ips
and loca-
tions ref erred to in h is narrative. He is an avid reader of
military h istory
and
f requently
ref ers to th e
knowledge
h e h as
gained
f rom books about th e
attack. He uses th is
background knowledge
to
present
a
summary
account
of events on December
7, organized
on a
sh ip-by -sh ip basis, f ocusing
on
th e main
battlesh ips
and th e
damage
and casualties incurred
by
each dur-
ing
th e
attack,
wh ile also
drawing
on h is own
personal experience.
Alth ough
Husted's talk is distilled f rom a
variety
of
sources,
h e inter-
sperses
h is narrative with observations and anecdotes f rom h is own
experi-
ence as a
navy
veteran and as a survivor
(wh ich ,
in
any case,
is
immediately
evident f rom h is
dress, including
h is
cap,
inscribed "Pearl Harbor Survi-
vor,"
and h is self
introduction).
As most of th e survivors do wh enever
th ey
address a
group
audience at th e
M emorial,
Husted introduces h imself
by
Emotional
Remembering
* 515
giving
h is name and
military
rank at th e time of th e attack. On one occa-
sion,
wh en h e started
talkinginf ormally
with two or th ree
people
and th en
f ound h imself with a
larger group gath ered
f or h is
talk,
h e
interrupted
h im-
self to mark th e
beginning
of h is narrative with an introduction:
98: Back
down, my
name's Dick Husted.
99: I came out h ere aboard th e
battlesh ip
Oklah oma.
100: I was a seaman f irst class wh en th is occurred.
101: T h e Oklah oma
got
out h ere December
6, 1940,
a
y ear
and a
day
bef ore th is
h appened (tape 97-2, 2/13/97)
Here Dick Ilusted
places
h imself on h is
sh ip,
one of th e f ocal
points
f or h is
sh ip-centered narrative,
and f or Pearl Harbor
iconograph y generally ,
wh ere
ph otograph s
of
exploding
and
burningsh ips
h ave become th e
signa-
ture
image
of th e attack. In h is
introduction,
Husted locates h imself in both
th e time and
space
of th e h istoric events h e is
going
to talk about.
And,
wh en h e talks about
coming
"out h ere" aboard h is
sh ip,
h e f urth er indexes
th e location of th e
present speech
event as th e location of h is
story .
Fur-
th ermore, by identif y ing
h imself as both a veteran and a
survivor,
Husted
indicates th at h e not
only
talks f rom
experience,
but f rom th e
particular
experience
of national
military
service.
Having
introduced h imself as a Pearl Harbor survivor and a U.S.
N avy
veteran,
Husted can talk in th e
subjective
I-voice of
He also talks in th e
th ird-person
voice of
documentary h istory ,
occasion-
ally ref erencing
th e texts wh ere h e f inds h is inf ormation
(see below).
Wh ile th ese
perspectives
are sometimes
placed
in
opposition,
as contras-
tive modes of
h istoriograph y ,
survivors
f requently
switch between
th em,
and even meld th em in th e voice of th e national
we, ph rasing h istory
as
collective
experience.
We h ave recorded Dick Husted
speaking
in th e museum on f our
sepa-
rate occasions over th e course of th ree
y ears.
T h e narrative structure of
h is
presentations
are
h igh ly
consistent. He uses th e
plural
voice in a vari-
ety
of
way s
to f rame h is narrative: th e "we" of th e nation, th e "we" of Pearl
Harbor
survivors,
th e "we" of
battlesh ip sailors,
and even th e "we" of h is-
torians
(wh at
"we" now know to h ave
h appened),
in addition to th e occa-
sional "we" of h imself and th e
people listening
to h im.
First,
th e "we" of
battlesh ips
and th eir crews. In
setting
th e
stage
f or
th e
attack,
Husted talks about th e reasons th e
battlesh ips
were in th e h ar-
bor, describing
events f rom th e
vantage point
of th e "we" of
battlesh ips
and
th eir
crew,
a
usage
th at
implies
a close identif ication between
self , men,
and
sh ips. (Alth ough ,
as is conventional in
navy talk,
Husted
ty pically per-
sonif ies
battlesh ips
with
gendered pronouns
"sh e" and
"h er.")
54 T h e reason th e
battlesh ips
were
in,
we couldn't
keep up
with th e carriers.
55 Admiral
N imitz,
or Kimmel
rath er,
did not want us at sea with out air
protection.
56 Carriers could do 33 knots and we could
only
do 21.
516 ? ET HOS
57 In
f act,
task f orce two wh ich
my sh ip
was
part
of .... Wecame in
Friday
because
th e carrier was
putting
to sea. . . .
[tape 94-4, 2/8/94]
T h e second
ty pe
of
plural subjectivity
evident in Husted's museum
talks is th e "we" of th e
nation, ref erring
in th is case to America at war. In
th ese
cases,
it is h is national
identity
as a citizen of th e United States th at
f rames h is
speaking identity .
For th e most
part, also,
th is identif ication lo-
cates th e
speaker
in
h istory
as
well,
as a citizen at th e moment of th e out-
break of
war, alth ough
th ere is some
ambiguity
wh eth er th e "we" in th ese
statements also
encompasses
th e "we" of
today 's citizenry .
For
example:
112 Wewere at undeclared warin th e N orth Atlantic.
113 Wewere
loosing
50
percent
of our
sh ipping
...
114 Wh en th is occurred
h ere,
we h ad
already
lost th e
destroy er
Ruben James.
115 But it ended
up
we h ad th ree battle divisions out h ere ...
[tape 97-2; 2/13/97]
Wh en
ref erring
to th e same events wh en
giving
th is talk on anoth er oc-
casion,
Husted added an aside th at makes it clear th at th e "we" of Ameri-
cans is also th e "we" of th e older
generation
of Americans wh o
experienced
th e war:
433
By
th e
way
... we were at warbef ore Pearl Harbor
h appened.
434 It was
just
an undeclared war....
435 For
y ou people
in
my agebracket, y ou
remember th e Ruben James sunk
up
th ere....
436 So we were at war wh eth er
people
wanted to admit it or not.
[tape 94-4,
2/8/94]
T h is is
ty pical
of th e
way
in wh ich Husted
interjects commentary
about as-
pects
of sh ared
(or unsh ared) knowledge
th at
implicate
h imself and h is lis-
teners in th e same social and
temporal
f rame of ref erence.
Lastly ,
Husted
speaks
in th e "we" of
h istory or, rath er,
h istorians wh o
sh are a
vantage point
f rom th e inf ormed
present.
T wo
passages
serve to il-
lustrate:
145
[pointing
to th e aerial
ph otograph ]
T h is is th e Arizona ...
146 We
really
don't know h ow
many
bombs
actually
h it h er.
147 We know of two
def initely .
148 T h e
guy s
th at
survived,
th ere were 334 survivors ...
243
[T h e bomb]
went all th e
way
down and came in on th e starboard side h ere
righ t adjacent
to number one and number two turret.
244 And we estimate
may be
seven levels below bef ore it
exploded.
245 It eith er
exploded
in or
adjacent to,
doesn't make much
dif f erence,
th e
magazine
f orth e two f orward
guns. [tape 97-2, 2/13/97]
Just as Dick Husted sh if ts between
vantage points
in dif f erent
parts
of
h is
narrative,
h e
may
also sh if t voices with in th e same stretch of talk. T h e
rapidity
of th is in some instances ref lects th e ease with wh ich
perspectives
can be combined
by
a narrator wh o
occupies multiple subject positions.
In
some of th e most
poignant passages
of h is
talk,
th e
subject
is th e wartime
navy .
For
example,
wh en h e describes
attempts
to rescue sailors
trapped
Emotional
Remembering
* 517
inside sunken and
capsized sh ips
af ter th e
bombing,
th e
principle
actor is
th e U.S.
N avy ,
ref erenced as both "we" and
"th ey "
in
alternating
sentences.
In th e
excerpt below,
h e tells about of th e f ate of th ree crew members of th e
USS West
Virginia
wh o were
trapped
below decks and
f inally
died af ter two
weeks of
pounding
on th e h ull to attract
h elp.
375 Wecouldn't h ave
got
down to th em.
376
T h ey
didn't know wh ere th e noise was
coming f rom,
number one.
377 N umber two we h ad th e old h ard h ats with th e airh ose and th e
big
cumber-
some rubber suits.
378 Wh en
th ey
raised th e
sh ip
in '42 and f ound out wh ere
th ey
were
at, th ey
couldn't h ave
gotten
down to th em with modern
equipment [tape 97-2, 2/13/97,
em-
ph asis added]
In th e course of
describing
th e
attack,
Husted
f requently
makes th ese
kinds of sh if ts in voice. T h e
longest
stretch es of talk describe events and ac-
tions in
th ird-person, alth ough
th ese are at times
personalized
with th e use
of
f irst-person pronouns
or with th e
interjection
of stories about individual
experience. Sh if ting
between
"th ey "
and "we" also ref lects a broader dual-
ity
of
h istory
and
memory
th at
pervades (American)
discourses of th e
past.
M any
of th e survivors wh o volunteer at th e M emorial utilize both text-
based modes of h istorical
auth ority (sometimes accompanied by
ref er-
ences to
sources)8
as well as conf essional
speech
th at derives its
auth ority
f rom
experience.
In
general,
it is
only
war veterans and Pearl Harbor survi-
vors wh o talk in th e f irst
person
about th e actual events memorialized at
Pearl Harbor. And it is th e
park h istorians, curators,
and
interpreters
wh o
speak
in th e mode of
prof essionalized public h istory ,
distilled in a more ref -
erential
language
th at must utilize
quoted speech
and oth er devices to
per-
sonalize narrative
representation.
Of all th e
genres
of
public h istory presented by
th e Park
Service,
th e
documentary
f ilm
speaks
in th e most
consistent,
auth oritative voice. It
gives
an
eloquent,
25-minute overview of th e Pearl Harbor
attack, using
newsreel
f ootage
and visual
images
f rom th e
period
to
give
a ref erential
commentary
about wh at
h appened
and
wh y . Alth ough producers
of th e
f ilm made a
strategic
decision not to include
personalized
stories about
individual,
h eroic
acts,
it also mixes ref erential and
subjective
voices
(Wh ite 1997a). M arking
its sh if ts between
past
and
present by
transitions
f rom color f ilm to black and
wh ite,
th e f ilm concludes its narrative in th e
plural "we," asking:
How sh all we remember
th em,
th ose wh o died?....
Let our
grief
f orth e men of th eArizona bef orall th ose wh ose f utures were taken f rom
th em on December
7th ,
1941.
[M artinez
1997]
Here th e "we" voice links audience and narrator in a kind of collective
agency , f raming
th e occasion of
f ilm-viewing
and memorial
visiting
as
perf ormative
acts of
memory
and th e emotional
expression
of
grief .
Wh ile
518 * ET HOS
th e rh etorical "we" h ere
extends, potentially ,
to a
global audience,
th e
practical exigencies
of
language
and translation restrict th e f ilm's reach . A
limiting
case is th e
Japanese
audience members wh o
speak
little
English
and,
until two
y ears ago,
listened to th e f ilm with out th e benef it of trans-
lations
(now provided by
rented
earph ones).
T h ere is a certain
similarity
between Rich ard Husted's
sty le
of narrat-
ing
Pearl Harbor and th e f ilm's somewh at unusual mixture of
documentary
and testimonial
sty le.
T h e f ilm was made to
specif ically prepare
audiences
f or
visiting
th e M emorial. Like Rich ard
Husted,
th e f ilm
presents
retro-
spective
views f rom th e
vantage point
of th e
present,
inf ormed
by
contem-
porary
h istorical
knowledge.
But Husted also
speaks
as one wh o was th ere.
Alth ough
h e
may
draw f rom
texts,
th e reason h e talks to audiences at th e
M emorial,
and th e main reason
people
are interested in
listening
to
h im,
is h is
identity
as a survivor.
LIFE ST ORY/N AT ION AL HIST ORY
T h e
example below,
taken f rom one of Dick Husted's museum
talks,
il-
lustrates one
way
th at Husted
personalizes
h istorical narrative
by splicing
in h is own
subjectivity
into a
larger h istory ,
wh ich in th is
case,
h e con-
structs as a
sequential
review of
damage
to
sh ips
and h uman casualties.
Here h e discusses th e f ate of th e USS
Utah ,
wh ere 57 men died wh en th e
sh ip
was
torpedoed
and rolled over wh ile tied
up
at its dock.
Pointing
to th e
Utah in th e aerial
ph otograph ,
Husted ref ers to th e
sh ip's
Ch ief
Petty
Of f i-
cer,
Peter
T h omas,
wh o died wh ile
going
back into th e
sh ip
to save some of
h is men. As a medal of h onor
winner,
T h omas is of ten mentioned in Pearl
Harbor h istories. In th is
instance,
Husted notes
th at,
like
T h omas, h e, too,
h ad been a Ch ief
Petty
Of f icer in h is
navy career, th ereby connecting
h im-
self with th e narrative
th rough
a
principle
of
similarity .
90 But
any h ow, y ou
can see th e old Utah is startin' to
capsize righ t
th ere
[pointing
to th e aerial
ph otograph ].
91 T h ere's 57 souls aboard h er.
92 Sh e's th e
only sh ip
th at remains out
h ere,
outside of th e
Arizona,
sunk th at
morning.
93 I'm a
mustang.
94 T h at means ah
(ch okes up)
I come
up
outta th e ranks.
95 And I wore th e Ch ief
Petty
Of f icer's h at in th e
process
f orseven
y ears.
96 I
belong
to th e national Ch ief
Petty
Of f icer's Association.
97 T h e
ch apters
of th e association arenot called
ch apters, th ey 're
called Ch ief s
Quarters.
98 And a Ch ief s
Quarters
in T exas is named Peter T h omas.
99 And th e reason I
bring
h im
up
is because h e was th e ch ief water attendant on
h er.
100 He
got
th e
Congressional
M edal of Honor
posth umously .
Emotional
Remembering
* 519
101 Heh ad
gone
down th e th ird time f rom th e sh ore to make sure all h is men were
out f rom down below and never made it back
up (pause). [tape 97-3A,
2/13/971
T h is
passage
illustrates one of th e discourse
strategies
th at
personalize
th e
h istories
presented by
survivors at th e M emorial. In th is case th e
speaker
links h is own
identity
as a
navy
man and f ormer Ch ief
Petty
Of f icer with
th at of one of th e central
f igures
in th e Pearl Harbor drama.
Indeed, any
time a survivor talks about Pearl Harbor
h istory
at th e
M emorial,
h is iden-
tity
as a veteran
implies
a similar sort of
substitutability
between
repre-
senter and
represented,
with th e
speaker embody ing
th e kind of
national,
military subjectivity
constructed in th e Pearl Harbor stories.
In th e
example above,
wh en Dick Husted ref ers to h is own career and
f ormer rank as a Ch ief
Petty Of f icer,
th e
topic
transition is marked
by
a
brief
expression
of emotion
(line 94).
As someone wh o
spent
h is entire
career in th e
N avy ,
Husted f ormed
strong
attach ments to
sailors,
com-
manders,
and
sh ips.
In
general,
th ese attach ments are not verbalized or
made
explicit
in h is M useum talks.
However,
wh en h e does touch on sub-
jects
th at relate to h is own
lif e,
as in th e above
passage,
h e sometimes
marks th e intersection of narrative f rames
by inserting
a brief aside about
h imself . T h ese
asides,
like th e use of
f irst-person pronouns
to talk about
Pearl Harbor
h istory , bring
lif e
story
and national
story
into mutual rele-
vance,
such th at each
may
af f ect th e
oth er, allowing
national h istories to
acquire
a
degree
of
emotionality
and
personal experiences
to become to-
kens of national
subjectivity .
In th e interviews I h ave done with Rich ard Husted,
asking
h im to
expand
on h is lif e
h istory ,
some of th e sources of h is
sentimentality
be-
come
apparent.
He talks about th e
sh ips
h e served on as h omes and
sources of nurturance th at bred a sense of collective
identity among
th eir
crews, particularly
h is "f irst
sh ip,"
th e USS Oklah oma. He also
expresses
af f ection f or of f icers wh o
h elped
h im at various
junctures
in h is career.
Wh en h e talks about Pearl Harbor
h istory ,
and
especially
th e destruction
of
sh ips
and death of certain
individuals,
h e draws
upon
h is own under-
standings
of
sh ips, sailors,
and of f icers f ormed in th e context of h is lif e
experience.
Alth ough
Husted
presents
h is museum talk in th e
register
of a
public
h istorian, h is
primary identity
h ere is th at of a Pearl Harbor survivor. As a
result,
h is audiences are
inevitably
curious about h is
place
in th e
action,
and ask to h ear more about h is own
story .
Because h e
presents
h is talk in a
ref erential
mode, h owever, including
details of th e
sinking
of h is own
sh ip,
h is audience
f requently
h as to ask about h is
In two of
th e f our
presentations
we recorded, audience members asked Husted
about h is
experience
at similar
junctures
in th e narrative. In th e
examples
below h e h ad
just
described th e death toll on th e USSArizona and was dis-
cussing
h is
sh ip,
th e
Oklah oma,
wh en someone asked if h e was on th e
sh ip.
520 ? ET HOS
160 RH: . .. th at's th e reason we h ad th at
h uge
loss of lif e
161 95
percent
of th e
people
were aboard th e
battlesh ips
162 98
percent
aboard th e cruisers
163 Visitor:
(inaudible)
164 RH: T h e
gentleman
asked if I was on th e Okie
165
N o,
I wasn't.
166 ... I was in th e
liberty
section and I
h ad,
th e
th ing
th at set me aside f rom th ose
oth er
poor souls,
I h ad relations out th ere.
(tape 94-6, 2/10/94).
In th e second
example,
Husted was
discussing
th e extraction of bodies
f rom th eArizona and h is
sh ip
wh en one of h is audience
interrupted
with a
similar
question, seeking
to locate th e
speaker
in th e scene of action:
91 RH: T h e
people
h ere on th eArizona
(pointing
to th e
ph otograph ),
th ose
people
up
f orward were
vaporized
wh en th at
explosion
took
place
92 Back h ere f orward of th e main
mast,
th ose
people
were burnt and blown
apart
lit-
erally .
93 T h e
people th ey
did
get out,
as I
said, 110,
130 bodies were so
badly burned,
th ey
couldn't
identif y th em,
most of th em.
94
T h ey
areburied in Punch bowl as unknowns.
95
T h ey
got bodies out of
my sh ip
96 Visitor: Wh ere were
y ou?
97 RH:
Very f ortunately
I was ash ore.
98 I was
up
h ere at Haleiwa.
99 I wasn't
married,
but if
y ou
were in th e
liberty
section and
y ou
h ad bona f ide re-
lations ash ore
[y ou
could
get
sh ore
leave]. (tape 94-4, 2/8/94)
In both of th ese
cases,
once th e
question,
"Wh ere were
y ou?"
is
asked,
Husted sh if ts into a narrative of h is own actions th e
morning
of th e bomb-
ing. Ironically , th ough ,
th e central th eme of h is
personal story -and
th e
point
th at h as unsettled h im ever since-is h is absence f rom th e main
events of th e
attack,
and
especially
f rom h is
sh ip
at th e f atal moment of its
sinking.
Because h e h ad taken
overnigh t
sh ore leave with relatives on th e
oth er side of th e
island,
h e was not on th e Oklah oma wh en it came under
attack. Wh en h e arrived back at Pearl Harbor as th e attack was
ongoing,
h e
f ound th at h is
sh ip
h ad
already capsized
with
h eavy
loss of lif e.
T h ese were traumatic events th at continue to trouble Dick Husted.
For
many y ears
h e h ad
dif f iculty talking
about h is
experiences during
th e
attack,
and now th at h e
does,
h is recollections are marked
by signs
of
trauma:
partial
amnesia and
strong
emotions.
Despite repeating
th e
story
of th e
bombing
several times a week f or th e
past
f ew
y ears,
h e h as no
memory
at all of th e drive back to th e h arbor to
rejoin
h is
sh ip
wh ile th e
attack was
underway (wh ich
would h ave taken about 30
minutes).
N o mat-
ter h ow
many
times h e h as talked about th ese events at th e
M emorial,
to
media
reprentatives,
or in
conversation,
h e still f inds th at h e is
easily
over-
come with emotion wh en
talking
about th e loss of h is
sh ip,
as well as about
oth er losses th at
day .
As a
result,
h e
usually
makes
only
brief ref erence to
Emotional
Remembering
?
521
h is
personal experience
in h is museum
talks,
until someone
interrupts
h im.
Because h e was not on h is
sh ip
wh en it came under
attack,
Husted
f eels th at h is own
story
is not th e kind of
h istory
h is museum audiences are
most interested in wh en
th ey
come to th e M emorial. For th is
reason,
and
no doubt because of h is own
ambivalence,
h e h as ch osen to f rame h is
pres-
entation as a h istorical overview based on textual sources rath er th an as
personal testimony .
Wh en I asked h im in an interview if h is audiences want
to h ear about h is
experience,
h e
replied
th at
th ey do,
but because h e was
not in th e middle of th e
action,
some of h is listeners lose interest wh en h e
relates h is own
story :
135 GW: You must f ind th at wh en
y ou're givingy our
talks th at
people
want to h ear
about
y our experience.
136 RH:
Oh , th ey
do.
137 T h at's
interesting experience....
138
(th ey ask,)
"Wh at
h appened
to
y ou?"
139 So th en I h ave to backwater and tell 'em
[wh y
I wasn't
aboard]
....
140 So I was out th ere
[on
th e
opposite
sh ore of th e
island]
and wh en
y ou
tell
peo-
ple th is,
some of 'em
y ou lose,
and some
y ou
don't.
141 GW: Some
y ou
lose because?
142 RH:
Well,
I'm no h ero.
143 GW:
Oh , th ey 're looking
f ormore smoke and f ire
144 RH: Blood and
guts
145 GW:
(overlapping:)
Yeah .
146 RH: and so f orth .
147 But I've
got
th eir
attention,
so I
go
on with th e talk.
148 I tell 'em wh at
h appened. (tape 97-2A, 2/13/97)
In th is
exch ange,
Husted notes th at h e of ten h as to "backwater"
(interrupt
h imself )
to tell h is own
story , just
as in th e two
examples
above. He de-
scribes th e
expectations
of h is audience with
quoted speech ,
"Wh at
h ap-
pened
to
y ou?" (1. 138).
He sees h is audiences' interest f ocused on scenes
of battle and death
(alth ough
in th e talks we h ave
observed,
we did not see
evidence of
th is).
In
contrast,
wh en I f irst interviewed
Husted,
h e not
only
talked about
h is
experiences
on December
7th ,
h e assumed
th ey
would be
my primary
interest. With in minutes of our f irst session, h e was
describing
th ose
expe-
riences. In anoth er
interview,
h e
repeated
almost th e same
description
of
events
leading up
to and
f ollowing
th e
discovery
th at h is
sh ip
h ad been
sunk in th e h arbor:
413 We h it th e main
gate
wh en th e attack started on Wh eeler Field.
414 And
quite obviously ,
it was obvious we were at war.
415 And I lef t h im
[h is
uncle
T ed]
at th e main
gate.
416 And like I tell 'em I don't know h ow I
got
down to Pearl Harbor.
417 Followed th at old road....
419 T h e attack was still on.
420
T h ey
were out f irin' and stuf f .
522 ? ET HOS
421 I made it down to th e subbase and I was inf ormed th at
my sh ip
h ad
already
capsized.
422 All
y ou
could see out on
battlewagon
row was f ireand smoke.
423 And I became emotional I
guess.
424 Sh e was
my
f irst
sh ip. [tape 97-2A, 2/13/97, p.
13]
In th e interview
situation,
Dick Husted talked about
"becoming
emo-
tional"
(423)
wh en h e saw th at th e
h uge battlesh ip
rolled over on its side.
Elsewh ere h e h as described th e moment as a "traumatic
experience"
and
ref lected on th e
interplay
of narrative and emotion wh en h e
gives
h is mu-
seum talks. He
commonly
uses
psy ch ological
terms such as
guilt
or
trauma to describe h is
psy ch ological states,
both
past
and
present.
Wh en
talking
to museum
audiences,
h e
may
tell th em about th e blank in h is
memory
about
driving
back to h is
sh ip,
and
may
even
say
th at a "sh rink"
migh t
be able to
h elp
h im f ind th e reasons f or th is. But oth erwise h e adds
very
little about h is emotions th at
day
and avoids
talking
at
length
about
th e loss of h is
sh ip
and its crew because h e sees th em as "emotional
trig-
gers"
th at
bring
on tearf ul
f eelings. Instead,
h e f rames h is talk as one based
on h istorical texts. In th e interview
passage below,
h e h ad been
telling
me
wh at h e
normally
tells h is audience about
getting
down to th e h arbor and
seeing
h is
sh ip,
h is voice cracked and h e
paused ref lectively
bef ore
going
on to
say
in a
resigned tone,
"T h en I
go
on with wh atever I read in th e books.
T ry
to
get my f igures righ t."
510 RH: Lord h as a
way
of
taking
care of me.
511 [It was
a] very
traumatic
experience....
512 I know it
h appened.
513 [Sh e
was]
on h er side wh en I arrived
(pause)
514 T h en I
go
on with wh atever. I read in th e books.
515
T ry
to
get my f igures righ t. [tape 97-2A, 2/13/97]
Wh en Husted returned to Pearl Harbor f or th e 30th
anniversary
of th e
bombing
in
1971,
at about th e same time h e retired f rom active
military
service,
h e discovered th e Pearl Harbor Survivors Association and
began
to
talk with oth er veterans about th e events of December 7. In later
y ears
h e
moved to Honolulu on a
part-time
basis and oth er survivors
encouraged
h im to volunteer at th e M emorial. T h ere h e f ound a context in wh ich h e
could
begin
to talk at
greater length
about
subjects
th at continue to trouble
h im. He
recognizes
th at th e
opportunity
to narrate h is
experience-to
re-
f rame and
expand
memories of th e attack as a narrative of
collective,
na-
tional
h istory -h as
h ad a kind of
th erapeutic
ef f ect. He uses th e word
cath arsis to describe th e benef icial ef f ects of
narratingh istory
at th e M e-
morial.
Dick Husted
recognizes
th at h e remains emotional about Pearl Harbor
and describes h is interaction with audiences in terms of th e
contagious
quality
of emotion
expressed
between h im and h is audiences:
Emotional
Remembering
?
523
516 I
suppose
I dramatize a little.
517 N ot
try in'
to
get
emotional.
518 If I break
up,
th e women in th e crowd break
up.
519 I don't intend to do th at.
520 I mean I h ate to do it in th e
presence
of kids.
521
T h ey
don't know wh at a
76-y ear-old
man is doin'
up
th ere
cry in'.
522 You
know, really .
523 It embarrasses 'em.
524 And
y ou
th ink th at af tersix
y ears
of th is I'd overcome it.
525 And I do.
526
Ah ,
I
try
to
stay away
f rom but wh en
y ou're
asked a
question y ou're
asked a
question
and
y ou get
into
subjects
th at
y ou try
to
stay away
f rom.
[tape 97-2A,
2/13/97]
T h ese comments reveal a
good
bit about Dick Husted's own
conceptions
of
emotion and narrative
perf ormance.
He describes emotions as
mediating
h is interaction with h is
audience,
such th at h is
expression
of emotion is ca-
pable
of
evoking
audience
responses, especially
f rom women. Based on
similar comments f rom oth er survivor
volunteers, cry ing
in th e M emorial
context is
regarded
as
gendered,
with women members of th eir audiences
seen as most
likely
to
express
emotions. Oth er volunteers h ave com-
mented to me th at
seeing
women in th eir audiences
cry ing
is
enough
to set
of f th eir own tearf ul reaction. In th e
passage above,
Husted talks about h is
weeping
as
embarrassing ch ildren,
wh o
presumably
do not sh are knowl-
edge
of th e h istorical context th at
gives
th ese emotions
meaning,
in rela-
tion to scenarios of
tragic
death and
grief .
Husted's statement above about th e need to "overcome" h is emotion-
ality
wh en
talking
in th e
museum,
and h is
strategies
f or
doing
so
("stay ing
away "
f rom certain
topics),
indicate th at h e sees h is h istorical talks as best
done with out
expressions
of emotion.
Alth ough
h e
recognizes
th at h is own
memories of Pearl Harbor remain both emotional and
troubling,
h e con-
ventionalizes th at
experience
in th e course of
giving
museum talks. Af ter
say ing
th at some
questions get
h im into
"subjects
th at
y ou try
to
stay away
f rom"
(526),
I
commented,
"As
y ou
said
bef ore,
th ere are some
triggers,
and
y ou just
don't
go
into th ose." T o wh ich h e
replied,
"But wh at I tell
th em is wh at I've read out of books. I went aboard th e
Dewey
th e next
day ."
Dick Husted's museum
talks, presented by
one wh o lived
th rough
th e
attack,
work both to narrate and conventionalize h is emotional memories.
He describes th e ef f ects of th is kind of talk as
"cath artic,"
as
h aving
f reed
h im
up.
T h ese ef f ects are
commonly
described in th e
th erapeutic
literature
on trauma and
memory (Antze
and Lambek
1996), especially regarding
post-traumatic
stress disorders
among
Vietnam veterans wh ere th e
impor-
tance of sociocultural contexts wh ere war
experiences
could be talked
about with
compreh ending
and
sy mpath etic
interlocutors h as been
widely
discussed. T h e Vietnam veteran and auth or T im O'Brien ch aracterizes th e
524 * ET HOS
ef f ects of h is
writing
in much th e same
way
th at Husted talks about h is
presentations:
In
ordinary conversation,
I never
spoke
much about th e
war, certainly
not in
detail,
and
y et
ever since
my
return I h ad been
talking
about it
virtually nonstop th rough my
writing. T elling
stories seemed a
natural,
inevitable
process,
like
clearing
th e th roat.
Partly cath arsis, partly communication,
it was a
way
of
grabbing people by
th e sh irt
and
explaining exactly
wh at
h appened
to me....
By telling stories, y ou objectif y y our
own
experience.
You
separate
it f rom
y ourself .
You
pin
down certain truth s. You make
up
oth ers.
[O'Brien 1990:179]
AFFECT IN G HIST ORY: IN ST IT UT ION ALIZIN G N AT ION AL SEN T IM EN T
T h e
emotionality
th at surrounds Dick Husted's museum talks
and,
in
many way s,
th e activities of most of th e survivors at th e
M emorial,
reso-
nate with th e of f icial Park Service th eater
program
cited
earlier,
in wh ich
visitors to th e M emorial are told
th ey
are
likely
to react
emotionally
to
Pearl Harbor
h istory
and
memory .
It is th is marked
emotionality
th at
sig-
nif ies th e
importance
of th e M emorial as a site th at is not
just
a h istoric
landmark or tourist
destination,
but a
place
th at
attempts
to
speak
to in-
dividuals in terms of th eir
self -understanding.
T h e
pragmatic
role of emo-
tion-including
both emotion talk and emotional
expression-indexically
links
speaker, audience,
and narrated events.
Examining
th e
perf ormative
context of one survivor and h is
public presentations
of Pearl Harbor h is-
tory
h as been aimed at
outlining
some of th e
complexity
of th ese
relations,
such th at
speaker, story ,
and context are all
potentially
transf ormed in th e
course of
perf ormative
enactments of h istorical narrative.
T h e
duality
of
h istory
and
memory (or,
more
precisely ,
of discourses
of
h istory
and
memory ) permeates
th e Pearl Harbor memorial. T h e
public
expression
of emotion in th is context
simultaneously
marks its h istories
as
signif icant
f or
personal experience and, by
virtue of institutional con-
text,
collective
(national) h istory .
T h e modalities of h istorical
repre-
sentation th at th e Park Service uses to tell th e Pearl Harbor
story
complicate
th e of ten
opposed registers
of
prof essionalized (collective)
h is-
tory
and
personalized (individual) memory . So,
f or
example,
museum ex-
h ibits include
personal ef f ects,
letters
h ome, ph otos,
and so f orth
(T urnbull 1996) and,
as mentioned
earlier,
th e
documentary
f ilm f rames
its
documentary
account as an act of
memorializing,
of remembrance.9
Amidst th e
array
of
representational
media at th e M emorial and visitor
center,
th e voice of survivors is
nearly unique
as an embodied link be-
tween
personal memory
and national
h istory (even
if each survivor
brings
a distinct
story
and mode of
presentation).
Alth ough
th e
f olksy sty le
of
many
of th e veterans
may
at times seem
to
marginalize
th em in relation to th e
glossy productions
of exh ibits or th e
lavish ly produced documentary f ilm,
th eir stories do resonate with
many
Emotional
Remembering
* 525
visitors,
wh o of ten
may
be seen
posing
f or
ph otograph s
with a
survivor,
capturing iconically
th eir own
presence
in th e M emorial's
living h istory .
T h eir stories h ave also resonated with national
media,
wh ich
periodically
f ocus on Pearl Harbor
h istory (especially
in terms of
entanglements
be-
tween American and
Japanese
war
memory [Wh ite 1997c]).
Wh en
th ey
do,
th e h andf ul of survivors wh o volunteer at th e M emorial are of ten inter-
viewed f or
purposes
of
(inter)national representation.
T h e 50th anniver-
sary brough t
a
great
amount of attention to th e survivors and th eir stories.
T h is included
production
of several
f ilms, including
a commercial 60-
minute
video,
titled "We Were T h ere ... Pearl Harbor Survivors:
Ey ewit-
ness to
History ," produced
with both
English
and
Japanese
narration.
Survivor
voices,
it would
seem,
constitute one of th e most
signif icant
"arrests" in th e dialectics of national
self h ood,
h ere coded in both
print
and electronic media f or diverse national
publics.
Wh ereas th e
diversity
of
visitors to th e M emorial ensures a wide
range
of
interpretations
and emo-
tions,10
th e
perf ormative
construction of sadness and loss f rames Pearl
Harbor stories as a certain kind of narrative: one th at f its
specif ic
cultural
models of emotion. T h e Arizona M emorial and th e conf essional h istories
of survivors institutionalize th ese f rames as a means f or
reproducing
na-
tional narrative th at is both collective and
personal,
auth oritative and
emotional.
Given th e
small, aging
coh ort of Pearl Harbor
survivors,
th eir
pres-
ence at th e M emorial
today
marks a transitional moment f rom lived h is-
tory
to ref erential
h istory .
It will not be
many y ears
bef ore veteran
survivors are no
longer present
at th e M emorial in
person.
But th e survivor
voice will not be so much silenced as transf ormed into oth er textual or
electronic
media, ultimately
to be h eard
only th rough magnetic
and
digital
traces. As an indication of th e
importance
of th ese voices in th e
operation
of th e
M emorial,
th e N ational Park Service
recently
undertook to
produce
a video in wh ich several veterans wh o volunteer at th e M emorial tell th eir
stories on camera. T h e
f ilm,
a 30-minute video
completed
in
1996, pre-
sents a series of
vignettes
in wh ich six Pearl Harbor survivors and one
oth er veteran volunteer
(a Japanese-American)
tell th eir stories in
brief ,
uninterrupted
narratives.
(T h e
inclusion of a
Japanese
American
veteran,
talking
about
internment, represents
a distinctive voice th at cannot be
discussed h ere due to limits of
space.)
Af ter a standard
opening
th at summarizes th e
timing
and
strategic
details of th e
attack-using
stock
f ootage
f rom earlier documentaries-th e
narrator describes th e
purpose
of th is video
by emph asizing
th at it
pre-
sents veterans
speaking
about th eir own
experiences,
as contrasted with
textbook h istories. He makes
explicit
th e
h istory /memory opposition
th at
is
implicit
in
many aspects
of th e M emorial's
h istory .
In th is
case,
th e "real
526 ? ET HOS
lif e stories" of th e veterans are described as constitutive of a distinctive
kind of
h istory
based on emotional
understanding.
In th e next f ew
minutes,
we'll meet six survivors of th e attack on Pearl Harbor. We'll
also meet a
Japanese
American interned
by
th e U.S.
government
at Heart
M ountain,
Wy oming.
As th ese braveand th ough tf ul men
speak,
we'll learn about th eir
experiences
th en and
th eirf eelings today .
We'll also h onor anew th e memories of th eir comrades
and f riends wh o
gave
th eirlives in service to our
country . By listening caref ully
to th ese
real lif e stories we can discover new
meanings
to th e words
duty , h onor,
and
country .
And if we
pay
h eed with our h earts as well as our
minds,
we'll learn valuable lessons
about
courage, f ear, war, peace, anger,
and
f orgiveness. [N ational 1996, emph asis
added]
Here ref erences to th e
psy ch ological
and emotional states of th e
speakers
f rame th e narrator's statement of wh at th e video is all about. T h e
statement works at a
metapragmatic
level to ch aracterize th e veterans'
speaking
as a
specif ic
kind of
activity ,
one th at does emotion work at th e
same time as h istorical work. T h eir
speaking
is of interest not
only
because
th ey
describe
signif icant experiences,
but because of "th eir
f eelings,"
ex-
pressed
in th e course of
narrating
"real lif e stories." Wh en
packaged
as
textualized video
perf ormance,
th e
pragmatics
of veterans'
story telling
be-
come an
object
of narrative
commentary . By describing
th e
purpose
and
modalities of veterans'
stories,
th e narrator establish es a context f or
viewer
participation
and th e involvement of viewer and
viewed, just
as th e
ph y sical presence
of veterans
talking
and
interacting
with visitors does at
th e M emorial. T h e idiom of emotion of f ers a
culturally
constituted means
f or
conceptualizing
th is kind of
involvement,
f or
bridging
th e
temporal
separation
of
past
events and
present-day
selves. T h e
temporal
dimension
at work in th e video is
presupposed
wh en th e viewer is invited to learn
about
experiences
"th en" th at obtain
meaning
in relation to
f eelings
"to-
day ."
T h e common identif ication of narrator and viewer is f urth er indexed
by
th e narrator's use of th e
pronoun
we at various
points,
as in a
passage
wh ere both narrator and viewer are constituted as
spectators
interested to
break
th rough
th e
gaps
of time and
experience
th at
separate
th em f rom
survivors'
experience.
As stated at th e
outset,
national narratives are also self -narratives con-
structed on th e basis of cultural f rameworks of
meaning, identity ,
and
emotion. In a
study
of common
pictorial images
in American
h istory ,
Sch wartz
concludes,
"T h e one
commonality among
th e
images
... is
th at all are
designed
to make
personal experience
of th e world
tangible
and, th rough
th is
tangibility , public
and
meaningf ul" (1998:28).
Even
more th an
pictorial images,
narrative
perf ormance
f orms social and emo-
tional identif ications. T h is
paper
h as
suggested
some of th e
way s
th is
migh t
work. In
particular,
emotions and
emotionality , expressed th rough
institutionalized discourse
practices,
work to sch ematize
understandings
about h istorical events in terms of th eir
signif icance
f or th e self .
Emotional
Remembering
* 527
Given th e routinization of context and means of
representation,
places
such as th e Arizona M emorial
may
be
regarded
as emotive institu-
tions th at
work, pragmatically ,
to sch ematize emotional
understandings
of
h istory
and
identity . So,
f or
example,
emotions of sadness and
grief emerge
as f ocal emotions in th e M emorial's
present representations
of Pearl Har-
bor. But th ese work
only th rough dialogic
relations with oth er
competing
or ambivalent emotions. Seen f rom a
longer
h istorical
perspective,
th ese
emotions and th eir stories
migh t
be seen to obtain th eir
signif icance
in
relation to oth er emotions and
stories, including
th ose of wartime
anger
and
outrage.
But th is is anoth er
story .
GEOFFREY M . WHIT E is Senior Fellow at th e East-West Center and
Adjunct
Prof essor of
Anth ropology
at th e
University
of
Hawai'i,
Honolulu.
N OT ES
Acknowledgments:
T h is
paper
is based on research at th e USS Arizona
M emorial,
man-
aged
by
th e N ational Park Service
(N PS)
in Honolulu. I am indebted to th e all of th e N PS staf f
and volunteers at th e M emorial wh o h ave assisted th is
study
in a
great variety
of
way s.
I
particularly
want to th ank Dick Husted and oth er members of th e Pearl Harbor Survivors
Association wh o h ave sh ared th eir stories and
taugh t
me a
great
deal. T h e Wenner-Gren
Foundation
provided support
at th e outset of th is
project, includingsupport
f or th e involve-
ment of Dr.
M arjorie Kelly ,
wh o h as contributed
energy
and
insigh t th rough out.
I want to
th ank Bob
Desjarlais
and
T erry
O'N ell f or
organizing
th e
session,
wh ich
proved
to be an ideal
context f or
writing, presenting,
and
revising
th is
paper.
In addition to comments f rom oth er
session
participants,
I h ave benef itted f rom th e comments of two discussants well-suited to
critique
th ese articles: Don Brenneis and Vincent
Crapanzano.
1.
Intrigued by
events
organized
to mark th e 50th
anniversary
of Pearl Harbor in
1991,
I
began part-time
work at th e memorial in 1992
th rough
conversation with members of th e
Park Service wh o work th ere. Data collection was
greatly
f acilitated
by
a
grant
f rom th e
Wenner-Gren Foundation f or f ieldwork at th e M emorial f or nine month s
during1994,
car-
ried out
by my self
and
M arjorie Kelly ,
to wh om I am
gratef ul
f or
many
contributions to th is
project.
2. Survivor
memory occupies
an ambivalent
position
in th e context of a
public
institu-
tion,
wh ich is both a site of remembrance and a site of
public
education. Personal
memory
derives its
auth enticity
f rom
experience,
f rom th e I-voice of someone wh o witnessed events
in th e context of th e times. Wh ereas th e
immediacy
and directness
provides
one kind of
narrative
auth ority ,
th e
auth ority
of th e
speaker
is undercut
by perceived
limitations of th e
same
subjectivity .
T h e common-sense distrust of
memory
as a source of distortion stems
f rom
assumptions
th at
personal
recollections are
given
to both error and bias: error f rom
cognitive limitations,
and bias f rom th e ef f ects of
perspective
and
power.
3. In recent
y ears,
th e Park Service h as
increasingly
made ef f orts to reach
non-American,
non-English -speaking
audiences. Visitors
arriving
at th e Visitor Center now f ind inf orma-
tional broch ures
printed
in most
major European
and Asian
languages,
and h eadsets with
Japanese
translations of th e f ilm soundtrack and boat-ride narration
may
now be rented f or
a nominal f ee.
528 ? ET HOS
4. As an
aside, h ere,
th e arch itectural
duality
of th e visitorcenter on sh ore and th e actual
M emorial and sh rine built overth e sunken
sh ip
out in th e h arbor
gives
a
spatial reality
to th e
opposition
of sacred and secular th at
permeates
th e f unctions of th e M emorial.
5. Some visitors also discover th at not
only
th ose wh o died in th e
bombing
raid on th e
Arizona areentombed on th e
sh ip. Beginning
about ten
y ears ago,
members of th e crew wh o
survived th e December 7th attack h ave been
permitted
to
request
to h ave th eir ash es in-
terred on th e
sh ip.
Formal interment ceremonies are h eld
by
th e N ational Park
Service,
usually
with assistance f rom U.S.
N avy
divers.
6. I am
reminded, h ere,
of th e ease
th rough
wh ich I entered rural Solomon Islands com-
munities in th e
1970s, already h igh ly
self conscious of th e value of "traditional"
culture,
giving
an
"anth ropologist"
a
ready -made identity
as a student of custom.
7. M ost
notably ,
th e
large, mostly
Asian tour
groups
th at move
th rough
th e M emorial are
led
th rough
th e museum
by
th eir own tour
guides,
and
usually
do not
stop
f orth e museum
talks
given by
th e survivors.
8. T wo
examples
of Dick Husted's ref erences to h is
reading
illustrate h is citation
prac-
tices. Wh en
describing
th e
presence
of
large
numbers of
people
of
Japanese
descent
living
in
Hawai'i at th e time of th e
attack,
h e tells h is audience: "I'm
reading
a book now wh ich ac-
quainted
me with
th ings
I didn't know as a kid. And one of th ose
th ings
areth at
any
ch ild
born of
Japanese parents,
no matter wh ere h e was
born,
is a
Japanese
citizen orwas at th at
time"
(94-94). And, later,
wh en
talking
about th e critical details of
battlesh ip speed,
arma-
ment,
and so
f orth ,
h e
say s,
"I
get
all of th ese f acts out of Jane's. I read a lot. I was invincible
at th e
age
of 20. I could
sh ip any body
and
any th ing. Well,
I woke
up
th at
morning
and f ound
out I couldn't
quite
do th at. But I wanted to know
wh y every th ing h appened
so I read a lot"
(94-4).
9. T h e f ilm's emotional
quality
is accentuated
by
th e tone of th e f emale narrator
(Stockard Ch anning)
and
lilting
oboe soundtrack th at maximize its
path os.
10. From oth er sources of
evidence, including
casual comments and interactions
among
visitors,
and a
survey
of visitor
perceptions,
it is
apparent
th at th is f rame is f arf rom deter-
minative,
and even
responses
to such a "f ixed" narrativeas th e f ilm
may
be
widely divergent
(Wh ite 1997a).
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