“Of all the wonderful faculties that help to tell us we are immortal, which speaks the sublime truth more eloquently than memory”
The beauty of memory is much like the beauty of art. It captures a moment in time and allows one to feel emotions that they would not have already. This short story is a story within a story. What is actually happening is an artist painting someone and having him talk to get more natural expressions. There are pieces of artwork in museums that were made thousands of years ago. There are stories passed down from generation to generation spanning hundreds of generations. The lure of this is that these art forms immortalize the subject. The art forms of storytelling and painting are one and the same. They both have alike effects. A painting is an image of a memory, and the words coming out of this man’s mouth are the retelling of a memory. They both teleport people into a world they would have before been unknown to. This embedded narrative is a comment on the beauty of human storytelling. Storytelling is what connects humans throughout the world, in all of its cultures and allurements. The fact that this traveler is a sailor and is getting this painting done to give to his mother because she has not seen him in a long time and wants her to have something that reminds her of him is further proof of the connections these art forms give. This sailor’s immortality will live on through the artist, and then the artist will pass the story on, and the mother will pass the painting on. The loveliness and horrificness of immortality is the fact we never know what ours will be, by the time it comes, we have left. Memory is one way we can control our immortality. We are the tellers of our own stories. For all the artist knew, this man could have made the whole account up, however, this story is how the artist will remember the traveler. We just read that story and that’s how we will remember the character that is the traveler. Human immortality is an angelic gift, and whatever one we may have, however long it may last, is a blessing of humanity.