54 pages • 1 hour read
S. J. WatsonBefore I Go to Sleep
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2011A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Literary Context: The Psychological Thriller and Domestic Noir
Before I Go to Sleep is a psychological thriller. The genre is characterized by a protagonist (often the narrator) who experiences extreme emotional turmoil. The conflict in a psychological thriller often stems from the main character’s tenuous grasp on reality. They distrust others but, at the same time, feel their own perception is unreliable. An atmosphere of foreboding, suspense, and paranoia is created as the protagonist battles to discover a truth that may put them in danger. Standard literary techniques of the genre include plot twists, an unreliable narrator, red herrings (clues designed to misdirect the reader deliberately), and complex plots.
Watson’s novel can also be categorized as domestic noir, a subgenre of the psychological thriller that focuses on conflict within the domestic sphere. Home is portrayed as a potentially dangerous environment for the protagonist. The main character (usually a woman) is often subjected to escalating psychological abuse, such as gaslighting and coercive control.
In Before I Go to Sleep, Watson combines psychological tension with an atmosphere of domestic noir through his use of an amnesiac narrator. Christine’s memory loss makes her narrative potentially unreliable and limits the information she can convey to the reader. Meanwhile, the unfamiliarity of her home and her husband create a disturbing atmosphere. Christine’s domestic sphere is claustrophobic rather than comforting, as her amnesia imprisons her. The protagonist’s lack of memories means she cannot trust her perception of the world or other people. Christine’s paranoia is justified as Ben ruthlessly exploits her vulnerability through psychological manipulation. Using coercive control, he isolates Christine making her dependent on him. Ben then forces his false narrative on Christine, suggesting that her mind is playing tricks on her whenever she comes close to the truth. The extent of his gaslighting is finally revealed in the novel’s plot twist when he reveals that he is not Ben but Mike—Christine’s former lover.
Socio-Historical Context: Retrograde and Anterograde Amnesia
The cases of two amnesiac patients influenced Watson’s exploration of amnesia in Before I Go to Sleep: Henry Gustav Molaison and Clive Wearing. The documented experiences of Molaison and Wearing inspired Watson to create a character with both retrograde amnesia (the inability to recall anything that occurred before the event that causes memory loss), and anterograde amnesia (the inability to store new memories after the event or injury that causes memory loss.)
In 1953, 27-year-old American Henry Molaison underwent experimental neurosurgery for epilepsy. The operation, which removed certain areas of his brain, cured his epileptic seizures but left him with anterograde amnesia. Until his death at age 82, Molaison lived in a care facility and could retain no new memories. The subject of extensive studies, his case played a key role in research on brain function and memory and the development of neuropsychology. In the character of Christine, Watson replicates something of Molaison’s experience as she wakes as a 47-year-old woman still believing she is 29, the age when she lost her memory.
Clive Wearing is a British amnesiac patient who lost his memory in 1985 after contracting a virus that damaged his central nervous system. Formerly a respected musician and conductor, Wearing experienced both anterograde and retrograde amnesia. As a result, his maximum short-term memory span was around 30 seconds. Wearing’s consciousness would “reset” every few seconds, giving him the impression that he had just woken up. In his diary, the patient recorded this experience, crossing out his earlier assertions that he was awake to insist in the next entry that, this time, he really had woken up. Wearing’s case clearly influences Watson’s depiction of Christine, whose short-term memory lasts only as long as she stays awake. In Before I Go to Sleep, Wearing’s diary entries are echoed in Christine’s writings during her stay in the psychiatric ward: “8.15 a.m., […] I have woken up […] 8.17 a.m. Ignore that last entry. It was written by someone else, […] 8.20 I am awake NOW. Before I was not” (202).
In Before I Go to Sleep, the author implies that Christine’s amnesia is caused by a combination of traumatic brain injury and emotional trauma from her attack. Post-traumatic amnesia (PTA) is usually a temporary form of memory loss, lasting from minutes to months. Christine’s behavior as a hospital patient is consistent with the symptoms of PTA, which can include paranoia, agitation, confusion, and violent impulses. Research on the link between emotional trauma and memory loss suggests that, at times of great stress, memories may be buried and later recalled in flashbacks.
