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Similes
Chapter 37
Explanation and Analysis—More You've Lost:
Kirsten and August discuss whether it’s easier to remember everything or remember nothing after the death of the modern world. Here, the narrator uses situational irony to highlight the painful burden of remembering the world before the Georgia Flu, as Kirsten muses:
But my point is, doesn’t it seem to you that the people who have the hardest time in this—this current era, whatever you want to call it, the world after the Georgia Flu—doesn’t it seem like the people who struggle the most with it are the people who remember the old world clearly? [...] What I mean to say is, the more you remember, the more you’ve lost.
The situational irony here lies in the fact that remembering good things that one no longer has can be hard and horrible. People who are old enough to remember the past world have an asset—knowledge of a world filled with comfort, technology, and stability—but instead of feeling lucky, in some ways they suffer from it. Those who are too young to remember have nothing to compare their dangerous world to. Although they never had the luxuries of the past, they also don’t have to re-learn to live without them. In this moment Kirsten is recognizing that her pleasant memories are also a source of grief. Those who were too young to recall the old world don’t have access to an extraordinary asset. However, they also don’t experience losing it, because they never knew what they were missing.
Related Themes:
