I Used To Live Here Once is a short story by Jean Rhys which tells about a memory of the main character who is didn’t realize that she is in a coma or she has died. Honestly when I read it for the first time, I didn’t understand what really happened in the main character in the story. I was also a little confused when reading this short story so I read it over and over again. The thing that makes me confused is when the main character tries to wave her hand and say hello to the children she sees, but the children didn’t hear it even though it’s close enough. And when the main character tries to touch the little boy, he looks straight into her eyes with an unchanging expression, but the boy didn’t respond instead ran into the house with the girl. And sentence that make me confused again is on the last sentence of the last paragraph “ that was the first time she knew “. What does it mean ? What does she know ? So i read it over and over again, and finally I found the answer.

This story uses the theory / category of implicit memory which includes sensing, emotion, and stimulation of response. The main character using the memory category through sensing is proven in paragraph 1. The word “ looking “ in paragraph 1 proves that she is using her eyes to look or observe around. And then the word “ remebering “ proves that she was once in that place. She remembers every detail of the place.

Then through emotion, the writer uses the word “ extraordinarily happy “ in the second paragraph of the last sentence which means very happy, that the main character uses her emotions that is happy.

Then through the stimulation of response is shown in paragraph 5 when the main character waved her hand to two small children and tried to say hello, but the children didn’t respond. Then in paragraph 6 the main character tries to say hello for the third times and tries to touch them and then the boy responds by looking at her but with an unchanging expression.

In conclusion, this short story tells about a person’s memory / a flashback of someone’s memory. The memory accidentally appears on the main character when she is in a coma / died ( involuntary memory ). So the spirit experiences a flashback through the encoding process ( the process and incorporation of information received ), then creates a permanent memory through the storage ( creation of a permanent record of encoded information ) and finally produces a long term memory through the retrieval ( recall information that has been stored for use in a process or activity ). In the last sentence of the last paragraph “ that was the first time she knew “ she realized that she was only in her own memory when she was a child and she acts as her spirit in her memory.