The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each prayer accepted, and each wish resigned.
(taken from the poem Eloisa to Abelard by Alexander Pope)
All of us are struggling with commitments.peers,moralities,ambitions.can we ever really understand the peace a new born child experiences?a virgin nun(vestal) has nothing to prove to anybody.her attire is white,with no spots.she chooses to salvage her ties with the world,and the world forgets her just as easily-because she has nothing left to give and take.she is useless to this society,she has no responsibilities,no expectations.the mind free of all expectations and commitments shall dwell in a world where there is ceaseless peace(sunshine,happiness).for such a mind shall submit each of its whims to itself,with no role played by any particular situation in the realisation of its wishes.such a mind will never have to worry about those wishes coming true either,because after submitting all those wishes,it will return back to its state of "eternal sunshine".
historically,the poem talks of Heloise(1101-64)an eighteen -year old beautiful and intelligent girl,who fell in love with Abelard(1079-1142),a master scholar who was her teacher.the two had an affair while Abelard was staying at Heloise's uncle's place,and Heloise became pregnant.Abelard married her,but on a vow of secrecy,since he was bound to celibacy if he was to advance in the Church. Heloise's uncle Fulbert,however,was was not satisfied with this arrangement, and the relationship between the two men deteriorated to such an extent that Fulbert hired two ruffians, one of whom was Abelard's own servant, who broke into his bedroom one night and castrated him.
After that Abelard became a monk and forced Heloise to become a nun too,to repent for their sins. Initially he resided at the prestigious abbey of St Denis just outside of Paris, but following a series of confrontations with his superiors he left and established a small oratory which he named the Paraclete near Troyes. His former students soon discovered him there and encouraged him to keep teaching. They convinced him to drop his desires for a hermit's life, but before he left the Paraclete he brought Heloise there as an abbess of the nuns. Twelve years later Abelard's letter to his friend Plilintus provoked seven letters between Heloise and Abelard which re-evoked their past affections for each other. Three of the most ardent ones came from Heloise. Five hundred years later these letters were translated from latin to French and became popular during the latter part of seventeenth century France. By 1713 a famous scholar named John Hughes had translated and published the French version in England. Hughes was a friend of Pope's at the time and it was these translations that Pope based Eloisa to Abelard on.
Abelard and Heloise embody what one critic described as "sorrowing or rebellious love." Taking Heloise's three letters Pope recast them as a single epistle and changed the heroine's name to Eloisa.
The part of the poem above, from where the title of the movie" eternal sunshine of the spotless mind " is taken, are Heloise's ironic reflections on her life as a nun,and her fading memories.Throughout the poem she expresses a deep conflict between her love for Abelard and her devotion to God. The fact that both are painfully absent in her life magnifies the solitude of her life as a nun.
this is the thought that leads us to dwell on the counter-view,namely,does absence from every worldly commitment ensure happiness?it is a fact that a vestal's lot is indeed blameless,but does that ensure that the mind of hers resides in an "eternal sunshine"?the movie touches on all these very subtly,offering answers to some,and leaving the majority to be decided,or rather felt,by us.Indeed ,the answers are highly subjective,and part of the superbness of the movie lies in acknowledging this fact.
