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PROMPT: What people remember shapes their understanding of themselves and their world.
Robert Drewe’s The Shark Net explores the idea of individual’s memory sculpting their perception of themselves and their world. The Shark Net is Robert Drewe’s memoir that entails selective memory and details of past events that have altered his life on various different levels. Drewe eloquently describes selected sections of his childhood, adolescence, and adult life, revealing to his readers what significant events shaped his view on himself, and his surroundings.
The Shark Net predominantly deals with one perspective, the perspective of the author, Robert Drewe. Drewe selects memories from his childhood that have had a profound impact on his life on different emotional and psychological degrees. As a child, Drewe describes his parents, especially his mother, to always be shielding him from the world and the potential dangers that may be lurking in Perth, their new home. Drewe is the only boy who wears shoes to school, and consequently is mocked by his teacher when she hisses “does your mother think her little darling will get a cold in the tootsies?” He classifies himself as a social outcast from an early age, constantly feeling disconnected from the real world. Drewes upbringing indicates to the reader that quite a lot is expected from him by his parents, and to let them down would be deplorable. This was carefully made known when Robert Drewe engraved his initials in the limestone, and it began to crumble. He was in a frenzy to cover the hole in the wall, frightened of what his mother’s reaction will be. This passage is metaphoric in the way that Drewe is suggesting that just like the fragile nature of the limestone house, perhaps the people around him are also fragile, with no solid foundations to fall back on. Although Robert, the little boy obviously did not make such an observation at an early age, over time he has grown, matured and become an adult, his...