The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Looking at the Past: Nostalgia as Technique in The Naked and the Dead and For Whom the Bell Tolls: Difference between revisions

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 ours—what they experienced in their own cultural present”.{{sfn|Charnes|2009|p=73}} She contends, however, that scholars also need to “acknowledge the inherent limitations of the cognitive framework that continues to organize our ideological
 relationship to time”.{{sfn|Charnes|2009|p=73}} Since life unfolds in chronological terms, taking
-measure of past milestones or events seems logical. Yet, when given a fanciful spin, nostalgia is less history and more fairytale
+measure of past milestones or events seems logical. Yet, when given a fanciful spin, nostalgia is less history and more fairytale.
+Despite the overriding negativity surrounding nostalgia—basically that it
+strips history of its complexities and enables individuals and society to yearn
+for a mythical past—a careful examination uncovers a different approach
+to looking at the past. From this alternative perspective, nostalgia can be interpreted as a positive force. Or, as Christine Sprengler explains, “[nostalgia] tells us something about our own historical consciousness, about the
+myths we construct and circulate and about our desire to make history
+meaningful on a personal and collective level” (). Rather than simply brushing it off as a form of camp or romanticism, I argue that nostalgia is a central component in enabling individuals to create worldviews, while also
+discovering ways to maneuver within society. Nostalgia, then, can enlighten
+and provide nuance as one interprets the past.