Screen Memory - Department of English

playmates of the childhood memory-scene. There was no love on
this occasion: he was at the University, “a slave to my books. I
had nothing left over for my cousin.” He believed, however, that
his father and uncle had made a plan for him to marry the girl
(3.314).
The childhood memory emerged on the second occasion,
attached to two experiences: desire for Gisela and shame over the
financial crisis that had originally caused his father to
relocate the family. Freud tells his alter ego that he “projected
the two phantasies on to one another and made a childhood memory
of them. The element about the alpine flowers is as it were a
stamp giving the date of manufacture. I can assure you that
people often construct such things unconsciously––almost like
works of fiction” (3.315). Freud’s later experience of certain
yellow flowers in the Alps had helped to trigger this childhood
recollection of the meadow scene with its dandelions when he was
aged three and still in Freiburg. 5
Do screen memories connect us to our childhood in any way?
Freud hesitates among various answers. At times he is positive
that there is a connection: "Not only some but all of what is
essential from childhood has been retained in these memories . .
. . They represent the forgotten years of childhood” (12.148). In
the essay, Freud offered a compromise position:
You have accepted my assertion that every suppressed
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