[spoilers] Lucas and his tattoos

[binkie]

Good grief! I need to leave this thread alone

(12-12-2010 07:49 PM)blackpearl23456 Wrote:  ...one thing I do wonder about Lucas and his tattoos is why, upon his return to England, did he not have the removed? I would have thought that he would have wanted to. He seemed so keen to try and forget the past (although it proved difficult, as things kept bringing up memories), and, in my opinion at least, it would have made sense for him to get rid of one of the most major memories of his time in Russia: his tattoos.

This question creates potential for a wide range of discussions, touching on, among other things, considerations of identity and anonymity, instruction and obedience, separation and loss, and conscious and unconscious memory. It also allows us to address some interesting additional questions having to do with aspects of personal and cultural memory, and invested and commodified memory. Is memory a controlled, or a controlling, value in the human condition? And how much is this altered or challenged by the experience of extreme circumstances?

I suspect some of the answers lie in the detail of Byatil’s observation that:

(12-12-2010 08:01 PM)Byatil Wrote:  I think in a way he probably liked to remind people (as well as himself) of what he'd been through.

We might also profit from a return to the point made by Belle that:

(07-12-2010 12:56 PM)Belle Wrote:  ...sailors f.i. got tattood for reasons of recognition, if they would drown on sea and their bodies were found beyond recognition, one could tell who they were by looking at the tattoos they got. So they actually equalled who they were with their tattoos.

I will try to work up something coherent on this later today, or tomorrow.

Incidentally, Byatil, I do not believe the thoughts you set out in your earlier post are disjointed or nonsensical. I think you are being rather harsh on your ability to express yourself in an engaging and cogent fashion. I will almost certainly be making shameless and repeated reference to the content of your post in whatever I have to say later