The Longest Memory

Fred D’Aguiar’s The Longest Memory explores the causing factors and traumatic results of choices made by individuals.
These choices include; Chapel’s decision to run away, Whitechapel’s decision to inform on Chapel, Sanders Junior’s choice to disobey Mr. Whitechapel therefore whipping Chapel, and Lydia’s decision to teach Chapel to read and write.
From these choices come consequences and we see and understand them in The Longest Memory.

The First choice is how Chapel decides to run away. There is a cause to this decision and that is Lydia’s persuasion to meet him up North. We know this is a precipitating factor because she tells him of blacks and whites associating with each other which persuades Chapel to meet her north where they can then be together, which then makes him run away.
With this choice comes consequences and in this case, the consequence is that Chapel got caught and whipped to death by Sanders Junior, his half brother, as we fi...