Erased and Displaced Identities in S.J. Watson’s Before I Go to Sleep

Abstract

Steve J. Watson was born in England in 1971. Watson, who worked as an audiologist in the NHS before starting his writing career, had the opportunity to closely observe the characters’ lives, which would be the subject of his works in the hospital where he worked. Based on the lives of Henry Gustav Molaison and Clive Wearing, both of whom have long-term memory problems Before I Go to Sleep was published in 2011. Molaison and Wearing’s years of illness had a profound effect on Watson. Similarly, Christine, the novel’s protagonist, also suffers from Molaison and Wearing syndrome. Waking up every morning with a new identity, Christine tries to make sense of what is happening around her until she falls asleep again. The forgetfulness she experiences alienates her from everything. Given that similar circumstances exist in real life, Watson aims to show the reader the effect of memory on identity through Christine. Studies on memory always play an essential role in fiction. Many literary texts concentrate on how characters remember their past and how this memory triggers the construction of their identity. In other words, many texts serve as representations of individual memories. While memories form one’s identity, amnesia leads to a new identity, life, personality and darkness. Therefore, for fiction writers, amnesia is a tool that emphasizes the relationship between identity and memory. Based on these facts, this study will focus on Christine, who wakes up every morning as a new person and will seek the answer to whether identity can be constructed without memory.