Miranda Knox. "Image ID: 88073." 1 Oct 2007. Online image. Stock.xchang. 31 Jan 2010.
When I read Oliver Sacks' text, even though I knew similar cases of losing memory, I was shocked and the story made me sad. It is because Jimmie could not share the same time with others, and because he was repeating the same time period over and over again.
However, I was relieved because Jimmie would never know that he was living in "the world of 1945" in 1975.
In the text, Sacks also says:
The horror, typically, is only felt by others -- the patient, unaware, amnesiac for his amnesia, may continue what he is doing, quite unconcerned, and only discover later that he lost not only a day (as is common with ordinary alcoholic 'blackouts'), but half a lifetime, and never knew it. The fact that one can lose the greater part of a lifetime has peculiar, uncanny horror. (Sacks 40)
However, there is another fact that one can completely be a different person, which also has peculiar, uncanny horror.
Dr. Lovett mentioned Phineas Gage's case in his lecture. Phineas had a great damage on his brain because a long iron rod went through his frontal lobes. Although he miraculously survived, since his brain was badly damaged, his personality completely changed. Before the accident, he was very responsible, thoughtful, and friendly person; however, he was no longer himself because he became emotional, stubborn, and short-tempered.
I think that Jimmie and Phineas represent both order and chaos, and it depends on whose point of view that people are seeing them.
Even though they were different from other people because of the brain problems, from their point of view, they did not have any problems. Just like Sacks said that the patients do not feel the fear because they would never know. However, from other people's point of view, since they had a brain problem, their behavior seems to be chaos.
And because it seems to be chaos, I think people feel fear.
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