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.
Themes
The Relationship Between Memory and Identity
By featuring an amnesiac protagonist, Watson considers how memories shape identity and what happens to a person if their memories are damaged or become inaccessible. The author’s exploration of the theme draws on the philosophical idea of the continuity of the self. In his “memory theory,” 17th-century philosopher John Locke argued that an individual’s identity is intrinsically linked to their memories of the past. Memories forge a connection between the past and present, inform our sense of self, and create a sense of autobiography. According to Locke’s theory, if memory disappears, so does identity.
In Watson’s novel, Christine’s memory loss causes an identity crisis, eroding her sense of self. She describes the repetitive process of going to sleep and then waking with no memory as “like dying every day. Over and over” (208). While other people’s narratives have a linear chronology, with each day connected to the previous, Christine endures a kind of purposeless circularity, always returning to the same point. Every day she faces a world devoid of context and must start over again. Christine often feels as if she barely exists, referring to her sense of identity through the image of drifting, like an unmoored boat. She describes feeling “as though [she is] floating. Untethered. In danger of being lost,” and she longs to “anchor” herself with memories (24). Christine also likens her situation to an “animal,” emphasizing the dehumanizing aspect of amnesia.
Without memories to guide her, Christine tries to make sense of her identity through the stories other people tell her. However, this process relies on the trustworthiness of her sources, allowing others, like Mike, to manipulate her. In the end, Christine manages to “maintain a thread of memory from one day to the next” by writing in her journal and rereading the entries (42). Through this process, Christine becomes a student of her history, reconstructing her identity from scratch.
Confabulation: The Relationship Between Fiction and Memory
Closely linked to the theme of memory and identity is Watson’s exploration of the relationship between fiction and memory. The novel examines the thin line between memory and fictional storytelling by introducing the concept of confabulation (a neuropsychiatric disorder where patients unknowingly invent memories).
When Christine visits the psychiatric ward, Dr. Wilson tells Christine that “patients with amnesia […] have a tendency to do something we call confabulation” (202). Dr. Wilson explains that the lack of real memories often prompts amnesiacs to inadvertently “invent details. About themselves and other people around them, or about their history” (202). Once Christine is aware of confabulation, she begins to doubt the veracity of her journal entries. She fears her accounts of memories may be fantasies, particularly as her version of events so often contradicts those of her husband.
Christine’s doubts about her memories are exacerbated by the process she must go through to retrieve them. As she reads her journal, she feels she is reading about a character in a novel, declaring, “all the history I have reads like fiction” (234). The authenticity of her journal is further complicated when she discovers that she is a published novelist, so she is practiced in the art of invention. Christine becomes increasingly uncertain that she can trust her recorded memories, reflecting,
Maybe everything I had written was a lie. I am a novelist, after all […] Or I used to be. The futility of my logic hit me. I used to write fiction, therefore my assertion that I had been a novelist might be one of those fictions. In which case I had not written fiction (105).
Throughout the novel, Watson uses Christine’s experience to highlight the confabulation involved in all memories. The author reminds readers that while they think of memories as accurate representations of past events, they do not correspond to exact experiences. All individuals filter memories through their subjectivity to suit their viewpoint. Dr. Nash points out the fallibility of memory when he tells Christine, “we’re constantly changing facts, rewriting history to make things easier, to make them fit in with our preferred version of events. We do it automatically” (220). What we think of as authentic memories are representations of past events, subtly changing with time and each recollection.
The Aging Process
Before I Go to Sleep examines the human fear of the aging process. Christine’s character is uniquely placed to highlight this theme, as she wakes most mornings believing she is in her late twenties, only to discover that she is 47. The aging process is particularly hard for the protagonist to accept as she cannot remember the intervening years and feels as if she has dramatically aged overnight.
Even as she gets used to the idea that she has no memories, Christine struggles to accept her aging figure and face. She is shocked by her lined face, and the shape of her body feels alien to her: “My buttocks sag, my thighs rub as I cross them” (116). As the protagonist still thinks of herself as a desirable young woman, she is upset when a young man in a café glances at her without interest, noting “the twenty-year-old me is upset. I feel as though I am invisible” (43). Although Dr. Nash is significantly younger than her, Christine frequently thinks of him as a peer because he “is only a few years older than I thought I was when I woke this morning” (44). When Dr. Nash touches her hand, Christine is initially embarrassed, thinking the gesture is inappropriately sexual but then realizes “his action was that of a young man comforting an older woman. Nothing more” (86). Christine’s difficulty in calibrating her behavior to her age eventually leads to her kissing Dr. Nash.
Christine highlights another challenging aspect of aging when she declares, “Half my life is behind me” (50). Here she confronts the fact that middle age is a significant life marker, indicating an individual is at least halfway through her time. At this age, mortality looms, prompting Christine’s disappointment that she has not achieved her life goals.
At the beginning of the novel, when Christine sees slippers by the bed, she believes they belong to “someone much older than I am” (17) and reflects, “I could never wear another woman’s shoes” (18). However, as her narrative progresses, she reluctantly comes to terms with walking in the shoes of an older woman. This adjustment is helped by the protagonist’s realization that the aging process affects everyone. Noticing that even Dr. Nash is showing the first signs of thinning hair, Christine observes, “Age catches us all out […]. In differing ways” (117). As Christine gains a more secure sense of her identity, she begins to view her aging body as “something new, a gift. Something to be learned from scratch” (162). When she notices her stretch marks, she perceives them as welcome proof that she is a mother: Her history is written on her body. Finally, Christine’s near-death experience at the novel’s end leaves her grateful to be alive. Instead of dwelling on the years she has missed, Christine is ready to embrace the time she has left.
