Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a cult classic sci-fi movie that depicts technology that can erase anyone from your mind within one night. While this might seem like a great idea, when you look at how memory makes up who we are, it might not seem as great anymore. 

In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Clementine, Joel’s girlfriend, erases her entire memory of him after a big fight they had. By doing this, she essentially erased an entire part of herself. Since they were very important to each other, this caused hurt and confusion in Joel’s life when he didn’t understand why his girlfriend didn’t remember him suddenly. After learning the truth, he immediately went to erase her from his mind due to hurt. While his memories are being erased, viewers see Joel grasping onto them, realizing he made a huge mistake by taking away a part of himself he loved so much. He went to extremes to try and find ways to stop the procedure.

The quote “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” said by Alexander Pope, has a deeper meaning than most people think just by reading it; the quote means that when one has no memory, one’s life is forever unharmed by the truth of the world. Being naive and not having any memory makes one’s life unmeaningful because what brings meaning in your life is not only good memories, but bad memories as well. This quote perfectly explains the main idea of the  movie in a sentence. 

Overall, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind depicts the harmful nature of regret, and specifically, wishing to have never known someone. Even though many think their memories are insignificant, they aren’t, and it is one’s memories that create the individuality and character of every person.