The Memory Police Themes

In The Memory Police, objects on an unnamed island gradually and inexplicably start disappearing. An unknown force causes many of the island’s inhabitants to immediately lose their memories of “disappeared” things and to dispose of them in turn. There are some people who retain their memory, though, and a government-run militia called the Memory Police hunts them down, arrests them, and sometimes even kills them. The narrator, a young woman on the island…

On the island where The Memory Police is set, characters frequently lose things—sometimes everyday objects,  but sometimes more important things, like family members or close friends. Aside from death, loss in the novel can also mean “disappearance”: the mysterious phenomenon where most people collectively forget and dispose of a once-familiar object. Or loss can be something more ambiguous, like when a person “vanishes” because they don’t forget disappeared objects like they’re supposed to and are…

Though so many things disappear throughout The Memory Police, the one thing that seems to endure is storytelling. On an unnamed island, objects “disappear” without warning and are never supposed to be spoken of again—there is even a government body, the Memory Police, who roam the island to ensure these things are gone for good. However, there are people on the island who do not forget—like the unnamed narrator’s mother—and who…

The question of fate versus free will is an important element of The Memory Police. On an unnamed island, objects mysteriously and supernaturally “disappear,” meaning that the island’s inhabitants almost instantly forget everything about them. Who is and is not affected by this phenomenon seems entirely up to chance, and a government-run militia called The Memory Police hunts down, arrests, and sometimes even executes those who do remember “disappeared” things. The unnamed narrator’s…