I have recently been submitted to several different essays including; Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.], The Sunflower and Memento (film). These essays and films present very diverse topics ranging from segregation, the Holocaust, violence, and opposition. While the titles mentioned above are all very different, they are all linked together by the theme of dualism. Dualism is a separation between two strongly opposing objects, and whether we know it or not, dualism surrounds them every day (Comer). Denying respect to a competing group or idea that you don't believe in is also a way to describe dualism. Dualism presents itself in many ways throughout everyone's life; it is a part of our identity that makes it almost impossible to exist in today's world without separation from an adversary or object. Dualism exists through many factors, one of which can be violence. The entire theme of the movie Memento revolved around an extremely violent man, Leonard Shelby (Nolan, Memento). Memento is a great example of dualism because it exists directly in the plot itself. As a viewer of the film Memento, I had an experience similar to that of Leonard Shelby. In the film, Leonard Shelby suffers from short-term memory (Nolan, Memento). Our lack of short-term memory makes it nearly impossible to have a realistic depiction of what happened in Leonard Shelby's life. I think in the film Leonard manipulates his memory loss to try to give his life purpose. Leonard states, “I can remember the past before the accident, but now I exist only for revenge (Nolan, Memento).” I think the purpose he tries to have in his life is to get revenge by killing the man he killed... in the middle of a sheet of paper... an enemy? In today's society our lives revolve around dualism, everyone has their enemies or rivals and there is disagreement across borders. Our enemies and our disagreements are the separation that dualism creates. Dualism is a separation between two strongly opposing objects. We must always have an opponent or an object to fight against, because without it in today's world we would not exist. Works Cited Comer, Todd. "Dualism." Arts and Humanities: Writing the World. Defiance College, Defiance, Ohio. February 14, 2014. Classroom lesson.Memento. Director Cristoforo Nolan. Perf. Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss and Joe Pantoliano. Newmarket Films, 2001. FilmWiesenthal, Simon. “The Sunflower”. The sunflower: on the possibilities and limits of forgiveness. Eds. Harry J. Cargas, Bonny V. Fetterman, and Simon Wiesenthal. New York: Schocken Books Inc., 1998. 3-98. Press.