Research Information System
9th International Nalans Conference , Trabzon, Turkey, 3 - 05 October 2023, pp.1, (Full Text)
Amnesia as a tool to emphasize
identity in S. J. Watson’s Before I Go to
Sleep
Memory has always played a significant part in
fiction. It is primarily interrelated with identity because present identity is
built with past memories. In literature, most texts focus on how characters
remember their past and how memories initiate their building of identity. At
the same time, a great number of texts are the representations of individual
memory. In some stories, memories include traumas that make people unhappy or
depressed, and people try to forget and get rid of their memories. On the other
hand, in some stories people who suffer from amnesia struggle to remember their
memories to find their own identity. Since the relationship between memory and identity
is still unclear, it has become a mysterious and intriguing theme, especially
for fiction. While memories construct the identity, memory loss causes a new
identity, new life, or multiple personality and darkness. Therefore, for
fiction writers, amnesia is a tool to emphasize the relationship between identity
and memory. S.J. Watson, an international bestseller writer of Before I Go to Sleep (2011), includes
amnesia in his book and tries to show how identity is constructed with or
without memory. The readers see both a
woman without any memory and not sure about her identity, and a woman who gains
her memories back. So, this study will focus on the protagonist, Christine, who
wakes up every morning as a new person and will seek an answer to the question of
whether identity can be constructed without memory.
Keywords: Memory, identity, amnesia, S. J. Watson