重建真實後再一次心跳？： S. J. 華森《別相信任何人》中記憶與女性自我 - 政大學術集成

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(1)國立政治大學英國語文學系碩士論文指導教授：陳音頤先生 Advisor：Eva Yin-i Chen. 重建真實後再一次心跳？： S. J. 華森《別相信任何人》中記憶與女性自我 Rebuilding Reality to Relive and Relove?: Memory and Female Identity in S. J. Watson’s Before I Go to Sleep. 研究生：楊子儀 Name：Linda Tzu-Yi Meimei Yang 中華民國 104 年 7 月 20 日 July 2015.

(2) Rebuilding Reality to Relive and Relove?: Memory and Female Identity in S. J. Watson’s Before I Go to Sleep. A Master Thesis Presented to Department of English, National Chengchi University. In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. by Linda Tzu-Yi Meimei Yang July 2015.

(3) Acknowledgments I would like to extend my sincere thanks to my thesis supervisor, Professor Eva Chen, an amazing reader. Thanks for asking me those challenging questions that prompts me to think more deeply and thoroughly. Her advice and assistance have truly been appreciated. I also wish to thank S. J. Watson, the author of Before I Go to Sleep, which inspires me so much. It is an honor for me to write a thesis on his wonderful novel. Special thanks go to all the members of my committee for giving valuable feedback on my thesis. Endless gratitude and love to my family and friends. Thank you for helping me to get through the hard times. Thank you, God, for blessing me and making me stronger. Thanks Meimei for being brave.. iii.

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(5) Table of Contents. Chinese Abstract……………………………………………………………………...vi English Abstract…………………………………………………………………......viii Introduction……………………………………………………………………………9 Chapter One Stories Untold: Past and Today of Contemporary Crime Fiction………………………...…...15 Chapter Two Questions Unanswered: (Un)reliability of Memory and (Un)reconstructability of Identity …………..29 Chapter Three Herself Lost and Found: Female Consciousness and Autonomy of Self-image…...…………………...41 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………63 Works Cited………………………………………………………………………..…66. v.

(6) 國立政治大學英國語文學系碩士班碩士論文提要. 論文名稱：重建真實後再一次心跳？： S. J. 華森《別相信任何人》中記憶與女性自我指導教授：陳音頤教授研究生：楊子儀論文提要內容：心理驚悚小說體現了當代犯罪文學作品的多樣性。隨著時代的變遷，最受大眾喜愛的文學體裁也備受考驗。近來有一股潮流試圖重新定位犯罪小說，而S. J. 華森的小說《別相信任何人》正是最佳典範。此書之所以引起各界的熱烈討論與受到全世界廣泛讀者的喜愛即在於它將看似毫無交集的元素完美融合─懼怕、懸疑、愛情、兩性關係、記憶與真實、女性意識、身分認同及重建。傳統犯罪文學的敍事結構中總著墨於主角對清楚絕對答案的追尋；然而，在這個帶有家庭黑色小說(domestic noir)色彩的文本中，最終的真理卻是遙不可及。書中的女主角克莉絲汀是名失憶患者，為了重新找回自己，她只能盡力從破碎的記憶中找尋蛛絲馬跡，拼湊被遺忘許久的自我。重新建構自我顯然並非易事，而個人記憶的真實性也有待商榷。事件發生與否和當事者是否能記得之間的落差所造成的空缺又該如何填滿？事實上，克莉絲汀渴望的絕非只是單單地活得如普通人般緬懷過去並展望未來，而是能重建一個充滿女性意識及自主的自我，. vi.

(7) 因此克莉絲汀也必須細心體會、感受並專注於眼前的生活及人事物。《別相信任何人》為犯罪文學帶來嶄新風貌，不僅成功突破以往的角色設定發展框架，劇情安排描述也導向了有關記憶真實性與身分重建的可能性探討，而對愛情的悸動、兩性婚姻關係的維繫、作為女人與母親身分的意識更是與克莉絲汀重建女性自我密切相關。. 關鍵字：《別相信任何人》、S. J. 華森、兩性關係、記憶與真實、女性意識、身分認同及重建。. vii.

(8) Abstract The psychological thriller demonstrates how diversified contemporary crime writing can be like a chameleon. In the emergence of reconstituting the much-loved literary form, S. J. Watson’s Before I Go to Sleep infatuates the reader with its high concern for elements that unusually match: fear, identity, love, reality, relationship, memory, and female consciousness. The clear-cut answer featured by traditional crime fiction cannot be offered in this novel that blending literary thriller and domestic noir together when the female protagonist only possesses fragmentary memory. To regain her sense of self, Christine the main character has to recall her reminiscence, which sometimes can be imaginary. In fact, what she longs for is not simply rebuilding her identity as a normal person, but the identity that has a lot to do with female consciousness and autonomy, which requires her to live her present life as well. Rather than another psychological thriller that tells an old story depicting the quest for the truth, Before I Go to Sleep shifts the focus from the deeply-rooted tradition in crime fiction, exploring the question of (un)reliability and (un)reconstructability of memory as well as what love means in a relationship. Only when Christine can relive as a woman, a wife, and a mother to re-experience love can she reframe her female identity.. Keywords: Before I Go to Sleep, S. J. Watson, relationship, memory, reality, female consciousness, identity.. viii.

(9) Introduction Before I Go to Sleep (2011) by S. J. Watson is an international bestseller, selling over four million copies in over forty languages around the world. It also catches the attention of director Rowan Joffe, who produces a same-name motion picture in 2014.This novel is unique for successfully connecting neuroscience with literature. The author S. J. Watson graduated as a Physics student and worked as an audiologist that specialized in the treatment of hearing-impaired children in the National Health Service in London for a couple of years. He was then accepted into Faber Academy’s “Writing a Novel” course, which consists of classes related to novel-writing and guest seminars by acclaimed writers, agents, and publishers. This debut novel is exactly the result of the writing program. In the author’s note section at the end of his novel, S. J. Watson reveals that his work is largely inspired by the lives of Henry Molaison and Clive Wearing depicted in Wearing’s book Forever Today: A Memoir of Love and Amnesia. Molaison suffered from amnesia at the age of twenty-seven and died when he was eighty-two years old. It thus makes Watson wonder what life might be like in those decades when the patient cannot form any new memory. Obviously, Before I Go to Sleep benefits from Watson’s medical background that enables him to offer rich information on neuroscience and latest technology for amnesiacs in the novel. His second book Second Life was published in June, 2015. Both of his books discuss the issue of identity, from identity rebuilding to identity multiplying. S. J. Watson’s work can be roughly deemed as a literary thriller and domestic noir for its setting in daily life and within a marriage. Obviously, S. J. Watson’s (S stands for Steve) female character is. 9.

(10) so convincing that “ninety percent of the publishers and ninety percent of the people who read it think he's a woman.”1 In the aspect of memory loss and retaining, the issue of searching for and rebuilding of identity, especially female identity, is actually the central concern in Before I Go to Sleep. Female self-awareness thus surfaces as the key element that links the case of memory loss to the meaning of existence and relationships between men and women. Consistent themes in crime writing pertain to reality, death, and identity, all of which are related to the solving of crime. The issue of female identity is well-investigated in crime writing as well when the rise of multiculturalism by the 1980s and 1990s leads to more diversity within the genre. Much attention has been paid to the feminist appropriations of the genre; essays and books after one another centralize how women, like men, have the ability to take the role of the professional detective. Nonetheless, is it only by competing with men or fighting against gender norms deliberately that women can construct their own identity? In S. J. Watson’s Before I Go to Sleep, past recollections not only help Christine achieve self-understanding but also form her female consciousness; yet when personal memory is blank, she demonstrates that women can rebuild a new one by claiming her autonomy in terms of body and mind. In this study, I will reinterpret Before I Go to Sleep as an excellent example that signifies the development of the crime fiction genre. This study will comprise three chapters. Chapter One will first focalize on the background to contemporary crime fiction, tracing how the thriller genre, particularly psycho-thriller is historically situated within a larger sphere of crime fiction. Wittgenstein’s (1953) Family. 1. See <http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748703730804576315520 689651538?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB100 01424052748703730804576315520689651538.html>.. 10.

(11) Resemblance theory will be applied here to enunciate the generic ideas of psychological thrillers and crime fiction. Fascinating trends visible in contemporary thrillers show that a wider variety of themes are explored in the thriller, which serves as an appealing writing style. S. J. Watson’s novel proves this statement amazingly. Its primary concern shifts from questing for the truth in the traditional crime fiction to reconstructing female consciousness under the condition of memory loss. Chapter Two will articulate the significance of memory with notions of identity reconstruction. Furthermore, it will delve further into the relationship between memory and reality: how one is conventionally privileged over the other. How the personal past is represented and how it influences the building of identity in Before I Go to Sleep will be scrutinized. The way memory can be constructed and manipulated will be discussed as well. The chief questions posed in the novel for this section are: firstly, past events shape who you are today. What if one cannot remember them? Do memories really define us? Secondly, which is more important: memory of the incident or the incident itself? An event has happened only because one remembers it? What happens if one cannot remember any of it? What if one unconsciously changes some parts and memorizes it not as the way it is? Why does Christine want to remember the tragical past even though she has to experience the pain endlessly? Sue Halpern, author of Can’t Remember What I forgot, points out the importance of memory in forming self-identity as well— “We rely on memory not only to remember but to walk and dream and talk and smell and plan and fear and love and think and learn and more and more and more.” With “absent memory, [amnesiacs] are strangers to themselves” (xii). Unsurprisingly, life can be despairing for someone whose whole life ahead becomes a blank to him/her.. 11.

(12) As Žizek states, the detective novel is about the “detective’s effort to tell the story, i.e., to reconstitute what ‘really happened’ around and before the murder” (49). Crime fiction has always insisted on achieving the ultimate truth through making good use of the reasoning mind. However, reality resides in memory, which stores the knowledge of everything around us. What if memory is lost forever? Or, memory deceives us? To an amnesiac like Christine, reality is substantialized as written records and images. Yet, these concrete touchable things are very likely to fail to stand for reality. In Before I Go to Sleep, deception devastates Christine’s relationship with Ben,2 who disguises as her husband to live with her. Hide-and-seek for truth thus becomes the invisible battle between the couple when Ben uses more and more lies to hide the fact about his true identity. In fact, deception is not unidirectional. It is also used as a shield for Christine to recapture her lost past when she hides what she finds out from her husband Ben and needs to creep out of bed to write things down in her journal after Ben falls into sleep. Before I Go to Sleep shows that memory might be untraceable or deceptive. Therefore, the self-image sustained by memory that resides in reality can be misleading and distorted. Chapter Three continues in the same vein from memory possession to identity forming, arguing that the protagonist’s identity is largely built on her femininity awareness. Proceeding from identity searching to female consciousness, the first half of Chapter Three will compare the primary text with its predecessors on the characterization of females. In terms of female character setting in crime writing, it actually does not vary much—from the typical male-like professional female. 2. Not until the last chapter of the novel is the truth disclosed—the guy whom Christine lives. with is not her husband Ben. Feinting to be Christine’s husband to spend life with her, the guy is actually Mike, who has had marital affair with her decades ago. Therefore, all the “Ben” mentioned in this study refers to Mike.. 12.

(13) detective to a detective that solves crime while not forgetting to express femininity and sexual attraction to men. Crime writing is traditionally characterized as a genre that is structured around white male heterosexual mind, but female crime novelists have tried to reshape the genre by showing that their female protagonists surely can be detectives as powerful as men, proving the belief that women are not subordinate to their male colleagues. Besides, these female detectives also do not take too much interest in appearance, clothes, and hairdo. Yet many of these female writings still fail to challenge the male-centered world. The female characters are still trapped within the patriarchal ideology; their behavior or purposeful performances still do not break the deeply rooted gender categories as they deliberately imitate men’s way of doing things. The second half of Chapter Three will rely on textual analysis and further explore how female identity is represented in Before I Go to Sleep. S. J. Watson takes a thematic leap beyond the scope of the psychological thriller, incorporating the meditation on female consciousness into the storyline. Unlike the assertions voiced by the feminists that point out the erroneous beliefs in the male-oriented society and claim to break free from such oppression by discarding all feminine traits in the characterization, female consciousness possessed by Christine in Before I Go to Sleep is about the way she sees herself, understands herself, and remembers herself. Female consciousness stands for Christine’s ideology, carving her ideal image of herself that reflects how she has become an independent woman fearing not to love. The main female character is especially vulnerable owing to her disability to retract and store memory. Female identity can be built through memory, but without memory, female consciousness can be reformed when the female protagonist feels herself not only as a normal person, but also as a mother and a woman.. 13.

(14) Finally, the section will analyze reasons for the female protagonist’ longing for regaining memory. The biggest motive is to live with knowledge of the past so that she can lead a normal life. However, the life she desires for is not simply the one that frees her from depending on others like a child. It is the life that has much to do with her craving to live as a woman—the woman who has her own occupation, instead of staying in the house all day long, the woman who can live through the experience as a mother to feed and raise kids, the woman who can share happiness and sorrow with the closest female friend, the woman who owns freedom and defense of her body without the pressure from the expectation of society, which fetters her role as a spouse, and the woman who, in spite of the blankness in her mind, can enjoy sex, feel passion, and love.. 14.

(15) Chapter One Stories Untold: Past and Today of Contemporary Crime Fiction Delving into the chaotic mind of Christine, who has to relearn her circumstances from scratch whenever she wakes up in the morning, S. J. Watson’s Before I Go to Sleep is commonly referred to as a psychological thriller. Since the psychological thriller derives from crime fiction, framing the reference of crime fiction for the following chapters is imperative. Crime fiction has received substantial recognition by both readers and scholars ever since its invention. The current landscape of crime fiction has been shaped by the trend of blending different categories together in the post-millennial decade. Several writers inaugurate this literary phenomenon. The diverseness offered by the genre is undoubtedly remarkable when more and more variations to the traditional crime novel develop into a substantial part of the genre. Most critics devote their research to different categories, stages of the development of crime fiction, such as the classic whodunit, hard-boiled, police procedural, thrillers, and so forth. Essays comparing and contrasting aspects of plot and character arrangement of crime genres are numerous. The categorization of crime fiction genre is rather miscellaneous and complicated when the genre recognizes a cluster of elements. Hence, the overlapping nature among the subgenres is easily perceived. According to Wittgenstein’s Family Resemblance theory, a particular family can be recognized without difficulty, while the characteristics cannot be exhibited by each member of a family. Taking the word “game” for example, Wittgenstein argues that there is no one single common feature. 15.

(16) that can be applied to all games, such as ball games, card games, chess games, and so on. It may seem that at least all games involve winning and losing, yet a game of a child throwing a ball to the wall and then catching it does not have this feature. The skills used in chess games are far from the one used in soccer games. Some games offer amusement or entertainment, while some others are aggressive competitions between two groups of players (31). What Wittgenstein suggests is that no one single characteristic can be observed by virtue of all games. Instead, only the connection that is interrelated among these games can be seen under the word “game.” Wittgenstein’s Family Resemblance theory is quite insightful; it does point out the unnoticed phenomenon within a group. Yet, it cannot be applied to every word. However, it is still appropriate to explain genres with this theory. Novels under the same genre, such as crime fiction, may not represent every specific feature separately, but share the family resemblances instead; they are all related. A set of overlapping characteristics links some of them together, while another set of features runs through other subgenres. In this study, crime fiction and detective fiction will be used interchangeably on account of their high degree of similarity. Crime fiction is often defined as “the unravelling and detection of the truth about a crime, usually but not exclusively murder, plays the central role in the plot” (Shepherd et al. ix). In the case of the classic whodunit, readers take the side as the detective, craving to know who the villain is. Police procedural heavily strengthens the process of crime committing as a form of how-done-it, while the psychological thriller, which focuses mostly on the murderer’s inner world, can be seen as a narration of why-done-it. Thrillers certainly share some resemblances with crime fiction, but thrillers more often than not focalize more on the present action and future event, rather than past crimes. In “The Typology of Detective Fiction,” Tzvetan Todorov situates the thriller as. 16.

(17) a sub-category of detective fictions, claiming that the thriller genre was created in the United States before, particularly after World War II. As Todorov finds, there is a duality in the whodunit that includes two stories—the story of the crime and that of the investigation. The first story is about what really happened, while the second story is about how the narrator has come to know about it. The thriller “suppresses the first and vitalizes the second.” Owing to the fact that prospection takes the place of retrospection in the thriller, its suspense lies in the fact that “everything is possible” (47). Uncertainty can definitely generate suspense in thrillers. Instead of scrutinizing the literary or sociological history of the thriller in general, Ralph Harper in The World of the Thriller digs into the existential themes of the thriller, especially readers’ involvement when gaining the sense of satisfaction by reading a thriller. Harper, linking the thriller to Greek tragedy, points out the shared similarities that feature the genres: pity and fear. It is the growing tension that intrigues readers so much when reading the thriller. Yet, the sense of shock that straps the reader must be relieved by the finale that reassures the act of poetic justice. Citing Albert Camus’s concept of “the absurd,”3 Harper declares that the thriller presents “the disjunction between the nostalgia for justice and unity on the one hand and the unreasoning silence of the world on the other” (8-9). Only with the offer of an end, the sense of fulfillment, can the thriller satisfy readers’ need to seek for meaning. This paradox and ongoing balance of the insecure and the secure aptly defines the thriller. By the 21st Century, the thriller has grown and thrived as a mature writing form.. 3. Albert Camus’s observes humans’ desire for clarity and meaning, which enable us to value our life. Nonetheless, the world offers neither meaning nor reasons for further explanation. Only when one recognizes “the absurd” situation, in which he cannot escape from and finally rests upon, can one feel free.. 17.

(18) Simpson, citing David Glover’s categorization of the thriller4, verifies the broadening territory of the versatile thriller (187). Patrick Anderson, weekly book reviewer for The Washington Post, declares that “by the 1970s the crime novel began to mutate into something that was bigger, darker, more imaginative, and more violent: the modern thriller” (5). In his book The Triumph of the Thriller, Anderson observes the phenomenon that popular fictions about mystery, suspense, violence, and crime have hooked readers more in recent decades. Devoting a whole chapter in his work to the background of the birth of the thriller, Anderson points out that the transformation of book publishing as well as outbreak of wars and economic recessions all contribute to the reason why people show much preference for the thriller, which “remind[s] us how ugly and dangerous our society can be and yet offering hope in the end” (7). Vietnam War and Watergate as well indicate the end of innocence for a generation. Therefore, the “illusion of order and justice” presented in the thriller is what shelters readers from the confrontation of rotten reality (7). Thrillers offer readers consolation and hope in that the criminal will be punished and justice will be done. The social order thus does not seem to be violated or reversed. While crime fiction seems to follow a supertext that narrates the fixed story about the discovery of crimes and the investigating process, literary thrillers come into view to advocate the possibility to combine crime novels with themes that seem to have nothing to do with the solving of crimes. Scenes of chases and gun-fire are no longer necessary. From then on, more and more writers like Lawrence Sanders seek for the answer about how variant the conventional crime stories can become. Anderson depicts literary thrillers as “novels that are better written and/or more. 4. David Glover classifies the thriller into several kinds: “racing thrillers (Dick Francis), legal thrillers (John Grisham), psychological thrillers (Dick Lehane), political thrillers (Jack Higgins), futuristic thrillers (Philip Kerr), and so on (139).. 18.

(19) ambitious in terms of characterizations and subject matter than the traditional thrillers” (139). Complex characters take the place of flat ones that only change a little bit from start to end; elements such as humor, history, supernatural beings, fancy, and so on are added to the new territory of crime fiction. James Crumley’s literary works, as Anderson notes, shine not with its plot, but with his “rough poetry, scenes . . . moments” (142). What captures readers’ attention may not be the story itself, but how the story is told, which enables readers to immerse themselves easily in the fictional world. Probably one of the most worldwide well-known examples of the literary thriller is Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code (2003), which has won unprecedented acclaim since its publication. The issue of how corruptive the Catholic church is has been dealt with many times before; nonetheless, few writers present the case “through the most popular form of fiction we have, the modern thriller, which enable[s] him to use murder, mystery, suspense, romance, chases, and related devices to hook the reader” (Anderson 143). Developing to the stage of contemporary thrillers, crime fiction has demonstrated its capacity and versatility not only in serving as a format, a genre, but also in serving as an efficient vehicle for writers through which various themes attract readers freshly. Todorov has similar viewpoints regarding the difference between the thriller and traditional detective fictions: “the contemporary thriller has been constituted around the milieu represented, around specific characters and behavior; in other words, its constitutive character is in its themes” (48). The sole focus on the crime is thus decentralized. Karin Danielsson from Uppsala University notices the diversity that crime writings can be, too. In her dissertation The Dynamic Detective, she discusses special interests in contemporary detective fiction, such as hobbies or pastime interests, a professional interest, gay and lesbian interests, race and. 19.

(20) ethnicity interests, and so on, which are featured in latter-day detective series. These materials gradually become a new convention in crime fiction, expanding the characterization of the detective, whose personal life turns out to be the focus that weighs over the plot of investigation. The twenty-first century has become a golden age of burgeoning literary thrillers. Conventional issues that thrillers center on like persisting social inequalities in contemporary society that are related to crime no longer dominate the development of plot. John O’Connell reviews Before I Go to Sleep in The Guardian, observing the possibility that the literary work demonstrates in the writing, which weaves literature (high) and recreation (low) together: “[t]he structure is so dazzling it almost distracts you from the quality of the writing. No question, this is a very literary thriller. It reifies books as memory boxes, dispatches from the dead. It also has—and expects its readers to share—a delicate appreciation of the links between fabulation (that is, the writing of stories that violate readerly expectations) and confabulation (the creation of false memories and experiences by a damaged brain).”5 Except for Before I Go to Sleep, not coincidentally, several thrillers like Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl (2012), another New York Times bestseller that has a film adaptation in 2014, advocates this new development, too. In one interview, Flynn, though often praised as a remarkable thriller writer, reveals that all her novels attempt to explore the dynamics and psychology of relationships of all kinds while the mystery is only used as a thru-lane.6 This shows the inclination for more contemporary writers to dig into deeper issues with the form of popular literature, suggesting the perfect blending of so-called high art and low art.. 5. 6. See <http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/apr/16/before-i-sleep-sj-watson-review>. See < http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2012/10/08/gillian-flynn-interview/1610623/>.. 20.

(21) Generally, Before I Go to Sleep is accepted and considered to be an outstanding crime novel and winner of several well-known awards, including the Crime Writers’ Association Award for Best Debut Novel, the Galaxy National Book Award for Crime Thriller of the Year, and so forth. As mentioned before, under the umbrella of crime fiction, texts may differ from each other so much. Therefore, to simply put the novel into the category of crime fiction is rather negligent and questionable. In reviews on S. J. Watson’s Before I Go to Sleep, the term psychological thriller seems to be the most frequently-seen word. Even so, does the literary work fit into what we think about the so-called psycho-thriller? Or does it refresh the genre? As to the origin of the psycho thriller, Simpson deems that even though the psychological thriller traditionally falls into the territory of horror given to the fear and anxiety it is often permeated, it actually “derives its mood and atmosphere from another kind of literary phenomenon: the so-called ‘noir’ style,” which “helps construct a coherent framework around the genre’s history and direction” (188). What the noir is about is social issues. It addresses inequalities with “its prevailing mood of pessimism, personal and societal failure, urban paranoia, the individual’s disconnection from society, and cynicism” (189). This noir style morphs into several subgenres of crime fiction like hard-boiled fiction and police procedural, and therefore shares common characteristics with the psychological thriller. To Simpson, the criminal consciousness definitely has a strong connection with society, where people sense alienation and helplessness. Furthermore, Philip Simpson notes that “[i]t is at this juncture between class noir and post-noir, between criminal fiction and earlier mystery and detective fiction, that one sees the shape of the contemporary psycho thriller begin to emerge” (193). One of the most obvious features of the thriller is the use of cliffhangers. The thriller. 21.

(22) typically narrates one physical danger after another that threats the protagonist’s life, intensifying the action to a climax to create suspense. Likewise, the psychological thriller relies a lot upon escalating the tension to the highest drama, yet it is normally about the emotional state of the main character, who is afraid of being detected his true identity. The psycho-thriller is defined by Simpson as the “genre in which crime is represented as an outward manifestation of the internal workings of the pathological individual psyche.” (187). In other words, a psycho-thriller can be regarded as a “character study” that intimately examines the “deviant mind” of the criminal, whose mental conflict is most explored by crime novelists. The criminal is definitely not a normal person; he/she is the one that is out of his/her mind, a person whose inner “psychological imbalance” and “physical danger” are thus usually closely connected. Most psychological thrillers suggest that the behavior of those perpetrating crimes can result from their psychological problems (Chen 180). Psychological thrillers thus are tales that aim to discern the motive of these psychologically damaged culprits. In the case of Before I go to Sleep, the story is told from the point of view of the victim, Christine, rather than the murderer. What interests both the writer and the reader is not the crazy mind of the victimizer, but that of the victim. The victimizer is in no way like the abovementioned killer with a mania or mental decline; quite the contrary, he is the one that takes care of Christine despite hiding things from her. Honestly, the victimizer never abandons Christine, who is left behind by her husband. He is the one that always stays by her side with unending love though the love somehow grows into excessive desire of possession. Had he sincerely told Christine about everything, she might have understood the situation and forgiven him. This close observation of faith and love in a relationship elevates the thriller to another realm.. 22.

(23) This specific recent development in character arrangement can be seen in Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl (2012) as well. Like Before I go to Sleep, Gone Girl has the victimizer and victim live together under the marriage vow, which suggests that the foundation of their relationship is built upon mutual love and cherishment originally. In fact, this kind of setting in crime fiction has come to regenerate the genre. Domestic noir, a term come up with by the novelist Julia Crouch in 2013, refers to exactly this new literary form. Instead of enthralling readers with unspeakable dread in an urban jungle, domestic noir typically presents marriage life from an unusual view. The loving and nurturing shared in the marriage become illusion that masks the real sinister side of home life. In her own blog, Crouch defines that domestic noir “takes place primarily in homes and workplaces, concerns itself largely (but not exclusively) with the female experience, is based around relationships and takes as its base a broadly feminist view that the domestic sphere is a challenging and sometimes dangerous prospect for its inhabitants.”7 This term aptly describes fictions that have been marketed as psychological thrillers when the label “thriller” might not be complete enough to explicate how domestic noirs distinguish from other thrillers. By incorporating the word domestic, Crouch not only points out the difference between this new subgenre that situates dark sides in familiar everyday environment and the classic one that gives its setting connotations with uncertainty as well as hidden danger, but also calls attention to the position of female consciousness in domestic noirs. However, the term domestic noir does not restrict its form by characterizing women as victims or victimizers. Back to the case of Gone Girl, this novel successfully subverts the traditionally established character arrangement that applies the roles of the detective, the criminal,. 7. See <http://juliacrouch.co.uk/blog/genre-bender>.. 23.

(24) and the victim to three people, or three groups of people. This kind of setting in crime fiction implies that the aforementioned roles are plainly distinct from each other; they are not to be confused. While this clear-cut borderline offers an easily understandable story for readers to follow and a non-chaotic social order that will be more effortlessly restored later on, it actually traps the plot development and rejects the common-seen scenario that happens in real life: the overlapping part of these roles. In fact, the blurring line among characters can be dated back to Sherlock Holmes Stories. Eva Chen (2004) observes that the roles of the detective and the criminal become more and more ambiguous owing to the chase of excitement featured in crime fiction (193). Take Conan Doyle’s “The Speckled Band” for example, Chen argues that the detective actually is not the absolute opposite of the criminal. On the contrary, they both believe that individualism can be put higher than law and social norms. In order to punish the criminal, Sherlock Holmes makes the criminal die indirectly by attacking the snake, which is used by the criminal to kill the victim. The criminal becomes the victim, who does not escape from the control of the cunning Holmes, the detective whose action reveals his limitless desire to get whatever he wants without considering violating the law. This kind of irresponsible behavior of hurting others and intruding into someone’s privacy is nothing far from those done by the criminal. The only difference between the criminal and the detective is the thin line of code of ethics. In Gone Girl, we have two disturbing narrators exchanged back and forth to tell a story about how the all good relationships go bad. Alternative voices provided by the novel enable the reader to look through both the victim’s and the victimizer’s mind. Furthermore, because one of them is identified as the culprit by the police, he has to investigate about what gets wrong without the help of the police. Therefore, all. 24.

(25) typical roles are taken by these two main characters in the story. Gone Girl begins with Nick and Amy quickly falling in love with each other after the first meeting. Amy loves games and she always sets up a treasure hunt for their anniversary. At first, Nick loves all what she does and they enjoy the happily-ever-after married life. However, things start to get wrong gradually. One day, Nick finds that Amy disappears at their fifth wedding anniversary. She totally evaporates and leaves no clue at all. Not surprisingly, all things hint that Nick is the suspect: he looks not quite sad at the news of his wife gone; he increases her life insurance; Amy’s neighbor points out his irresponsibility as a husband and a father, revealing that Amy is pregnant; Amy’s diary discloses her unconditional love to Nick, who yet does not treat her well. Meanwhile, Amy is actually hiding in other places and seeking help from her ex-boyfriend Desi, who finally locks her in his mansion out of his obsessive love to Amy. Despite finding that Amy frames him, he has no way to prove it. Not until he eventually confesses his sincere love to Amy on a TV show does Amy decide to go back with her husband and thus kill Desi to escape from the house, telling the media that she has been kidnapped by Desi for weeks. It turns out that Amy’s reason for plotting to frame her husband is that Nick has had an affair with his student. Unconditional love does not exist, but requires that “both partners to be their very best at all times” (554). Nick figures out that “[t]here’s a difference between really loving someone and loving the idea of her” (28). As a psychological thriller, Gone Girl’s emphasis is actually put on the unravelling of a marriage, a heavenly relationship gone off the rails. The character arrangement shines the story when Amy the original victim transforms into the victimizer, while Nick the original victimizer is forced to be the victimizer and the detective. Everyone’s position is never fixed but fluid. Although the end might not be a happy end, both of. 25.

(26) the characters have figured out what gets wrong and what they truly want from each other in a relationship. Before I go to Sleep probes into the issues of relationship and female consciousness as well. Descriptions of experiences that are particularly associated with women permeate through the whole novel. Nonetheless, to label it as a domestic noir is arbitrary. The text in question is more of a psychological thriller or domestic noir when passages after passages describing how memory works in our brain divert the reader’s attention to another mysterious world related to neuropsychology: different types of amnesia, latest experimental techniques, controls in MRI, anoxia, neural excitation, operation of coding short-term memories as long-term memories, and so on (25-8, 101, 177). All of these words that readers might stumble over are well-elaborated. The literary piece is a miscellany giving readers amusement and knowledge at the same time. What makes the fiction intriguing is not simply that it captivates readers with unresolvable tension as a psychological thriller, but that the writer of the novel has no idea how this text is going to be at the first stage. Instead of being determined to write a suspense novel that weaves violence and crime into the story, S. J. Watson simply comes up with an only vague idea of the final scene of the story, declaring in one interview that he wants to develop the characters through writing. Therefore, every character has boundless potential to develop in any direction. In fact, what he plans to write is actually a “meditative novel exploring themes of memory and identity and love.” Interestingly, it is not until his agent reads the story and points it out that he realizes his novel turns out to be a thriller.8 Hence, we might say that the. 8. See <http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748703730804576315520689651 538?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB100014240. 26.

(27) psychological thriller, rather than a subgenre, is “more a matter of style and substance” (Frey 15). Undoubtedly, it provides a framework for a deeper investigation on the subject matters. Contemporary psychological thriller thrills the reader not with a psychopath out of control, but with normal people seeking for comfort, answer, and truth. What S. J. Watson does in Before I go to Sleep is to defamiliarize and refamiliarize the novelistic form: its dimension dismembers the original form, yet all it brings together is so familiar to us.. 52748703730804576315520689651538.html>.. 27.

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(29) Chapter Two Questions Unanswered: (Un)reliability of Memory and (Un)reconstructability of Identity The best I can hope for is that, one day, looking in the mirror will not be a total shock, that I will remember I married a man called Ben and lost a son called Adam, that I will not have to see a copy of my novel to know that I had written one (191). Identity forming has always been one of the most favorite themes for all literary productions. Recent studies such as Investigating Identities: Questions of Identity in Contemporary International Crime Fiction collects essays by international critics that analyze discourse regarding the issue of identity that is affirmed in the crime fiction nowadays. In Before I Go to Sleep, memory loss disturbs Christine’s understanding of self and perspectives of life, which frightens her to the extent that she feels like herself withdrawn and abandoned from the world. Due to memory deficiency, the protagonist Christine Lucas, who has been suffering from amnesia for years, has started to record her life in a journal secretly for less than one month. It is through the journal that the reader enters into Christine’s life, the life that exists from the moment she opens her eyes to the time before she goes to sleep. Everything she has known will be wiped clean the next day. It is also through the information left in the journal that Christine and readers simultaneously notice the gap between Christine’s and her husband Ben’s version of the past. As a journal, the whole book actually begins and ends “today”. The chapter divisions signify. 29.

(30) Christine’s inner conflicts and efforts with dates so that she is able to make sense of her life, which seems to be normal yet finally unveils a horrible crime already done decades ago that brings about her mental breakdown as well as amnesia. Before I Go to Sleep does not delve into the investigation of crime and neither Christine nor the reader knows whether there is one. No serial killer, no hide-and-seek, no detective or police scenes can be found in the story. The aggressive feminist voice and the solving of the riddle or the murder itself are not matters of primary importance; instead, the main character’s own personal circumstance is what drives the plot. In fact, Christine’s prime purpose to accept Dr. Nash’s suggestion and treatment regularly is never to find out the truth that causes her brain injury. Poor Christine finds out that years have slipped through her, leaving no trace. To her, time stretches to nothing. Time is meaningless; it represents only stagnation. What prompts her to record even bits and pieces of her daily life is the desire to live with personal past and future as a normal person. Without dramatic plot that revolves around hidden secrets and schemes of the crime, the novel presents Christine’s life in domestic settings. It appeals to readers not with its overly sensation plot device or unanticipated plot twist, but with loss of memory, the consequence of which we all might confront. It is a story of soul-searching under the condition when the past and the future mean nothing at all. According to Sharon Packer, as more and more people are haunted by the nightmare of Alzheimer at the turn of twenty-first century, more and more fictions and films centralize loss of identity and sense of displacement. Loss of memory has been a weighty topic that contemporary fictions tackle. By setting similar scenarios in which the main character loses part of the previous memory, fails to retain information in short-term memory, or tries to look back into past memory about others, writers explore how memory of certain events. 30.

(31) might be so subjective, reflecting the gap between actuality and memory. Some others present the miserable life that amnesiacs have when all they can do is to depend on people around them. To illustrate how essential memory is to forming self-identity, how self and identity is defined should be discussed first. According to Harvie Ferguson, identity, commonly referred to what makes something it is, can be manifest in lots of forms, including those that are often paired as opposites: particular and categorical, singular and plural, objective and subjective (10). The feature of particularity is the most important to identities of objects. Like the pen the writer bought in a Kyoto bookshop, the identity of the pen is “inseparable from the history of our relationship to them and [is] defined through this relational history.” While what makes a pen unique is that it is my pen, the pen is also “an instance of a multiplicity” (11-2). In the case of human identity, the pair of objective and subjective is most relevant. By applying the terms, Ferguson means that objective characteristics refer to those that are externally observable of a person, such as age, gender, and so on. However, objective data, though available from official records, is unreliable to him; to identify a person definitely requires understanding his/her belief and attitude, which are characteristics thought to be subjective. Despite the fact that these classifications are not universally applicable, as Ferguson comments, they are still important for sociology in the aspect of figuring out human experiences in life that are often taken for granted. In the context of modern everyday life, identity a) reveals how people and things are connected, as the example of the pen given earlier, and b) is not something always fixed, exclusive, or changing, but something fragmentary, something that can be “borrowed for relatively brief periods.” Here Ferguson introduces the concept of “empathic identity,” the identity that is experienced when reading stories, which. 31.

(32) enables the reader to identify with the character that is “other than ourselves” (17). In fact, this is the most common approach in contemporary life that lets everyone temporarily live with another identity while not discarding the original identity. Only in the age of global village can one have kimchi and coke at noon and watch an Italian Opera with his hippy outfit. Therefore, questions of identity is no longer “‘who are we?’ but ‘who are we like?’ or, ‘who would we like to be like?’” In this way, traveling abroad nowadays becomes a form of “identity excursions” in a casual but authentic mode (17). Modern forms of identity formation diversify and deconstruct what has been traditionally considered to be fundamental and permanent. Self, which is closely related to the idea of identity, ceases to embody a unity for inner perceptions and experiences of a person, rather, self is a mediation, an unresolved tension that hold different selves. The declaration that the self is connected with interiority is reconfigured by Paul Ricoeur, who displays the relationship between narrative and self-identity: “It is the identity of the story that makes the identity of the character” (147-8). Here the literary idea of narrative is brought to correspond not merely with the plot of a story, but with the unity of the inner state of a character. To Ricoeur, the self is “best understood in terms of narrative,” and this can be best exemplified in an autobiography (113). The completion of an autobiography demands the writer’s effort to recall the past and arrange all the fragments. Consequently, the continuity and reconstruction of integrate self somehow equals what readers read in an autobiography. Nonetheless, the self that is presented in the narrative might tend to be deceptive to some extent when the writer is determined to show an ideal image of the self to readers by covering or rearranging past events.. 32.

(33) If memory represents our understanding and recollections of the past, then it definitely plays a key role in the process of forming self-identity of us. It is widely believed that what memory provides is a sense of continuity, the supportive pillar sustaining our belief that we are subjects, who have history to reflect upon as well as future to look forward to. While most philosophers point out the strong link between memory and self-consciousness, Ferguson elaborates the concept of memory in quite a different direction: memory “is a version of selfless non-identity that stands positively at the outset of the contemporary postmodern” (113). Memory, in fact, cannot totally serve as the sole mechanism that builds one’s self-identity. Citing Marcel Proust’s passages that describe a spontaneous flow of memory, Ferguson notes that the exact moment when memory returns is actually the moment when the self disappears. Discontinuity is thus created. The “involuntary character” of memory, therefore, “is often charged with a sense of ‘reliving’ rather than simply recalling the past, also exists exclusively in the transience of now” (109). What memory represents is not the past, but the present. If so, then what symbolizes the past? History, records preceding incidents, “is a representation of the past,” while memory, embedded in everyday life, is the means to create the present (Pierre Nora 1-3). A similar view is exposed by David Hume, who believes that just like events happening one after another does not demonstrate the operation of causality, the memory of “successive events fails to demonstrate the real continuity of self and, thus, fails to demonstrate the reality of self-identity at all” (qtd. in Ferguson 110). As Ferguson concludes, “memory works against itself; against the self. Self and identity dissolved into pure sensuous awareness, made eternal, rather than actual, in recollection” (113). Yet, no matter how strong or loose the relationship between memory and self-identity. 33.

(34) is, or how memory stands for the past or the present, one’s memory certainly occupies a large part not only in the brain, but also in the heart. Whether reality is undoubtedly more real than memory is always a difficult question to answer. Christine strikingly illustrates the confusion: “[t]he truth was that I had no memory of the accident, and so it did not seem real. . . . It’s like they don’t even exist” (71). To some extent, the present results from the past. Since memory functions as we encode, store, and retrieve information gathered around incidents, memory mediates reality as the foundation that builds our vision and establishes our understanding. For a nation, memory counts even more. Histories are made by memories that are often politically driven. How about for individuals? As Christine finds, the present environment is “completely flat,” “devoid of energy,” and “colorless” (47). She seems to be an outsider looking at the life she nonetheless involves. On the contrary, the vision she has of past events, though just fragmented memory of moments, is “almost more real than the life [she] had opened [her] eyes to when it vanished” (60). Her memory shocks her with its clarity and hard edges. To Christine, memory does weigh heavier than reality. While she cannot dig out any meaning from the present, she feels a sense of security and belonging whenever her memory returns. However, the fact is that the accuracy of memory has always been questioned. Cases of false memory syndrome are far from few. Studies show that a quarter of people without brain injury do find their memory to be unreliable, let alone patients with the problem of remembering things (Champion 72-3). Since we do not deliberately record incidents in our mind, we are very likely to have memories of real events and imagined ones. Substantial research has shown that errors in remembering can be demonstrated in experiments like reality monitoring and eyewitness testimony (Foster 72-3). With internal (original inability to memorize details correctly) and. 34.

(35) external (the use of leading questions when asked to recall things) factors, the accuracy of memory is highly doubted. Besides the notion that there is high possibility that we remember things not as how they actually had happened, memory, to a large extent, functions to fulfill the psychological and social need: to memorize things that had taken place in a particular way, we unconsciously believe it and make it real. Memory of oneself is generally considered to be one’s representation of self. It constitutes the persona that one retains. Self is “a relation rather than a simple unity”; this self is as “continuous possibility of becoming aware of the world as ongoing, past and future potential experience,” which we are aware of “ourselves as having, or undergoing” (Ferguson 20). Similarly, to Craig Barclay, memory does not work singly, but interactively. Remembering has much to do with interpersonal interactions; it is “used adaptively” to “form friendships or love relationships.” It is deeply engaged with how we feel and need, “especially for nurturing relationships” (285, 319). Christine in Before I Go to Sleep definitely longs for a close friend and beloved husband to depend upon. Without them, she hardly can reform her lost identity and relive with hope. The concept of autobiographical memory suggests that there is a priori self, the past self, which can be consulted as a file containing a record intact. Nonetheless, Barclay’s view is that “there is no one stable self or collection of selves to be remembered.” Any memory can become an autobiographical one when it “specifies the personal significance and meaning of that memory for the person,” who evaluates the “embodied experience;” hence, remembering ourselves is just a reconstruction in the present “for some contemporary purpose” (296, 285). Consequently, memory of oneself is never reliable. On the contrary, it is virtual memory.. 35.

(36) Autobiographic remembering is concerned more with a sense of the past in the present to serve some function or goal, than with the accuracy of some specific recollection that would inform us about how such a recollection is represented cognitively (Lowenthal 1985; Neisser 1982). On this view, remembering can be seen as serving both social and psychological functions; namely, the establishment and maintenance of intimacies through the sharing of autobiographical memories and collective remembering as in families (Halbwaches 1925; Middleton & Edwards 1990), and the maintenance of a psychological and emotional well-being (Barclay & Smith in press) (qtd. in Barclay 290). Craig Barclay’s account of memory and self is based on an understanding that autobiographical memory differs from general memory in that it “is associated with feelings that are interpreted within the context of cultural models that provide explanatory systems for understanding our everyday experiences and emotions” (286). Because it is as a sociocultural phenomenon that is so meaningful to the person, its inaccuracy can be anticipated. What it stores may not be the objective record of things and people, but those added a layer of appearance that he/she prefers more instead. Before I Go to Sleep, though not a neurological textbook, does infuse the narrative with rich illustration of how memory works and how it might confuses people: patients with amnesia often tend to have confabulation. “Things around them do not seem to make sense, and so they feel compelled to invent details [a]bout themselves and other people around them, or about their history. . . It’s thought to be due to the desire to fill gaps in the memory” so that it can be “understandable, in a way” (188). Therefore, memory, instead of a result of how the brain stores images and. 36.

(37) conversation, turns out to be a way we use to explain what has happened. It is subjective interpretation. Solving the riddle raised in crime fiction is always one of the climaxes at the end of the story. It brings readers back to the beginning, reaffirming the original social order and familiar view of the world. However, Before I Go to Sleep differs from this long-established tradition, for it brings out the idea that what really happened does not quite count. What one can remember or what one thinks one can remember is the truth. Sally Munt identifies psychological thrillers as the genre characterized by “a dissolving sense of reality” (20). The supremacy of truth over memory is severely questioned. The blurring borderline between reality and memory reflects the view of post-structuralism regarding to truth: there is never objective truth. Logocentrism,9 which is found on a fragile basis, can thus be reversed. The logocentric way of thinking asserts how pure truth is, how it is privileged and superior to anything else. Yet, there are only constructions/representations of truth. What is really real can never be traced again; it is actually built on a shaky foundation and thus can be dismantled. It is just verisimilitude, an air of truth. Now that truth is constructed, memory represented in Christine’s journal is a construction of truth. The majority of book reviews on Before I Go to Sleep highlights the close relationship among identity, memory, and reality. Rob Minshull’s book review on 612 ABC Brisbane believes that the novel puts the possibility of trusting and living without memory into question. Val McDermid, author of Fever of the Bone, praises this psychological thriller as “a deeply unsettling debut that asks the most terrifying question: what do you have left when you lose yourself?” 10 One reader under the ID. 9. Logocentrism, a term used by French deconstructionist Jacques Derrida, refers to Western belief or desire for absolute truth, the center where all thoughts revolve (76). 10 More reviews can be found under the section of “Reviews & Press” on the official website. 37.

(38) name of The Book Slave on the website Geeks of Doom, notes the ambiguity between reality and memory as well, and extends the query to illusion: “[w]ere those mere fabrications of imagination produced by her [Christine’s] broken brain or were they real memories of a dear friend long, long gone?” 11 Indeed, the searching for a transcendental signified, the ultimate truth can be agreed to be the goal of crime fiction. It is the story about finding out what really took place before, who hurt others out of what kind of reasons. Michael Holquist examines kitsch functioning in the classic detective novels. Kitsch, “the sense of reassuring sameness,” comforts in the way that an escape from irrationality is provided: it “is not real, but it is familiar” (152). He finds that the world of the detective story is “ordered” and “ultrarational,” so everything can be understood under “the power of reason.” The “supremely rational quality” is one of the biggest unbreakable rules for detective and crime fiction (156, 158-9). The belief crime fiction presents is that nothing is unsolvable with the reasoning mind. Emphasizing the logical solution to the puzzle through step-by-step inquiry, detective novels must offer narrative closure, “the promise of an answer,” so that the tension built along the plot can be relieved through “the experience of an end” (Porter 339). This end can be achieved only when the truth is disclosed through reasonable explanation, which governs the direction of narrative in crime fiction. Likewise, Moretti and Porter acknowledge that the function of mass culture is “to expel the ‘strange’ and reaffirm the ‘normal’” (qtd. in McCracken 56). The interest of the majority of crime writing is to rehabilitate the dominant social order that is threatened and destroyed at the beginning of the story.. 11. of Before I Go to Sleep. See <http://www.sjwatson-books.com/beforeigotosleep/reviewspress/page/3/>. See < http://www.geeksofdoom.com/2011/12/10/book-review-before-i-go-to-sleep>.. 38.

(39) In Before I Go to Sleep, no one knows what happened the night when Christine lost her conscience due to the attack by some people or someone else. Christine, the only one who knows the fact, is now an amnesiac who can only retain memory within twenty-four hours. Therefore, memory, encoded in the journal, books, articles, and photographs, serves as a tool to reconstruct reality and identity. But, it is the reality that is highly questionable, and thus the self-image is ambiguous. The old saying “Seeing is believing.” cannot be applied anymore. Christine’s career as a novelist leads her to the constant fear that all the contents documented in her journal might be her own imagination. The New Scientist published an article on how highly possible that people may remember things that never happened.12 Rather than impressions rooted deeply in the mind of the perceivers, memory is re-constructable and easily maneuvered. Christine believes that the scrapbook “is a version of [her] past, but chosen by Ben” and she wonders whether the journal she just gets from Dr. Nash contains another version of her past (31). Depending fully on the journal, which represents her past, Christine believes that she is nothing without her journal. It does terrify her a lot when Mike, after revealing his true identity, burns her journal in the hotel finally. Nevertheless, can the journal really be that reliable when some pages containing crucial facts are torn off by her fake husband? Can those photocopies be real when computer technology can make them with just some clicks? The psychological thriller reveals that memory can also be deceptive.. 12. See <http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2012/01/remembering-things-thatnever-happened.html>.. 39.

(40) Ben takes advantage of Christine, who will not believe anything until she sees it in person, manipulating her process of rebuilding her self-image. Ben glues all pictures of him and Christine on the wall in the bathroom, where she goes every morning after waking up. By doing so, Ben makes her practice believing what she has seen: Ben is whom she makes wedding vows to. In addition, he makes a clipping from newspaper and puts it in the forbidden box that contains some photos of Adam to let Christine believe that Adam is dead. Despite not adding extra words in the journal kept by Christine, Ben does transform the authentic journal into a weapon that corrodes her reason by tearing off some pages and leaving the part that proving Christine’s love to Ben. Truth cannot be represented in tangible objects. Hence, Christine relies a lot upon her own memory, those visions coming to her whenever and wherever something triggers them. Yet, her memory sometimes turns out to be imagined one. Therefore, to reconstruct her female consciousness, Christine has to not only trace back to her past, but further live in the moment: to create new memory, that is her life with and perception of Ben, Claire, and especially Dr. Nash.. 40.

(41) Chapter Three Herself Lost and Found: Female Consciousness and Autonomy of Self-image Most articles reviewing the novel in question merely meditate upon the series of questions regarding the significance of memory to identity, the identity of Christine as a normal person. Nonetheless, these reviews overlook the prominent role that female consciousness plays throughout the story. In Before I Go to Sleep, the level of profundity is intensified by its impeccable blend of the popular and the literary by gradually bringing up themes of female identity and the relationship between two sexes. What the protagonist Christine Lucas loses is not just simply memory, but her identity as a woman and all that accompanying consciousness. All she wants is to exert her free will, to be in control of her life and to love again as a woman. Female character arrangement in Before I Got to Sleep shows the refusal of conventional setup for women at some extent, marking the boundless possibility of the contemporary crime genre. An increasing number of writers, usually female ones, aim to rewrite this genre that is traditionally deemed as deeply implicated with masculinity. In fact, the masculine featured in this literary genre can be easily reversed, as Rowland states that “the whole crime fiction genre, representing the Other of traditional social order, is in itself inherently feminine” (qtd. in Knight 164). This indicates the hybrid characteristic forming crime fiction. With the goal in mind to demonstrate that women can be masters of crime solving, feminist writers assign their female protagonists to the task of investigating crimes by depicting them as extraordinary intelligent and rational, which are features that are not acknowledged as. 41.

(42) those belonging to women. Some female characters are even given names that do not disclose their gender. As Theo D’haen disclaims in his essay “Plum’s the Girl! Janet Evanovich and the Empowerment of Ms. Common America,” female detectives in women’s crime writing in the eighties “apparently prefer potentially male names: ‘Kinsey’, ‘Kat’, ‘V. I.’ occasionally lengthened to ‘Vic’ as short for Victoria” (150). Likewise, Sue Grafton’s alphabet series introducing Kinsey Millhone, a private detective, displays the trend to neutralize the female character’s sexuality: picking “the name Kinsey from a newspaper story because she liked it and it could be either male or female” (Anderson 94). Kinsey’s androgynous characteristic not only enables her to compete with men but also successfully performs another kind of femininity. In the context of the feminist movement sweeping the world, it seems that covering the feminine identity of the protagonist and revealing it later on is the most often adopted approach for writers to express the idea that women who are first considered as men by readers because of their names are able to deal with the so-called masculine stuff. Unlike women in precedent crime fiction, who intends to hide their femininity and thus abbreviates their name to a more masculine one, Christine is often called by her friend Claire as “Chrissy,” an absolute feminine name. As a patient suffering from amnesia, Christine cannot learn from her experience or plan for her future, let alone substantiating women’s competence. On the contrary, what readers often see on her are vulnerability and helplessness. This fragility never fades throughout the whole novel, yet it is accompanied by growing belief to stay calm and strong. Christine, though not might a perfect ambassador of professional investigator, shows women’s versatile feelings and lasting perseverance in the face of depression and difficulty.. 42.

(43) Neither copying the socially-accepted image of men nor trying to fit the standard of good women, Stephanie, the protagonist in the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich, just wants to be herself; she lives on junk food while showing pretty awful skill at doing any house chores, which is often designated as women’s responsibility. Even so, Stephanie does not lose her sex appeal at all. The most remarkable point of this literary work is that, as D’haen claims, to be a successful detective, “you do not necessarily have to look or talk like the male or even the female stereotype of the genre” (158). Female empowerment, well performed in Stephanie’s thinking and style of life, helps her triumph over men. Stephen Knight notes that Evanovich “communicates a good deal about the world of post-feminist young women and rustbelt America” (171). More emphasis is put on Stephanie’s love life, which welcomes readers to set out the journey with her at the beginning of the novel: “There are some men who enter a woman’s life and screw it up forever. Joseph Morelli did this to me—not forever; but periodically” (Evanovich 3). Highlighting the female protagonist’s complicated relationship with men, Evanovich does project a new concept of an independent woman in this serial that combines crime fiction and romance. The main female character’s intertwined life story shared with men drives the plot of the series. Similarity can be seen in Sue Grafton’s alphabet series, where readers definitely note Kinsey’s “girly stuff, [her] preoccupation with her hair and her butt and her romantic frustrations (Anderson 101). More and more crime fictions that surround the female protagonist elevate the significance of the inner life of the main characters, who do a research on how things develop the way they are and still live like everyone else at the same time. However, the vivid illustration of private life of the detective is not seen in classic male-oriented crime fiction. As Anderson observes, Sherlockians are not sure where Holmes goes to university, yet those who read the. 43.

(44) Kinsey Millhone series “know the name of the bully who tormented Kinsey in the fifth grade” (96). The detailed portrayal of the heroine’s life, sometimes even dating back from the childhood, has gradually become a big part that constitutes a crime novel. Sometimes the text dealing with the protagonist’s personal circumstance even weighs more than the goal of solving the crime and capturing the culprit. Women-centered crime fiction in recent years develops in the direction of subordinating the process of investigating the crime to the daily life and in particular the love life of the female characters. Similar variations can be seen in Russian detective stories. Willem G. Weststeijn in his essay “Russian Women Detective Writers” claims that crime fiction written by Russian women pays much attention to matters that hardly have relation to the history of the murder case (160). Weststeijn discusses a crowd-pleasing genre in Russia: lyubovno-detektivnye romany (love-detective novels), which is more welcomed by Russian readers than its counterpart in the West—the pure romance novel or pure detective one. Apparently, the popularity of this genre that combines love story and detective fiction in post-perestroika Russia reflects the hardships of Russia society and signifies Russian’s personality. Examining present-day works by Russian writers, Weststeijn finds out that in this kind of compound genre, female detectives outstrip their male counterpart by intuition, the perception that is opposed to rational science and logic. In addition, what occupies so many pages of a novel actually is not so related with the murder; what the writers narrate turns out to be the daily life and love life in particular of the heroine. To Russians, pure romance novels and detective fiction are too unrealistic to be true, for both literary forms head for a bright future: the love bubble within a couple never pops; the crime is always solved in the last chapter. It is this kind of promised denouement that readers feel difficult to identify with. Before the tied-up. 44.

(45) end comes, a variety of obstacles in life should be told to make the story probable. Therefore, the arrangement of hardness that blocks the protagonist has a lot to do with the “masochistic streak in Russian themselves.” Experiences of “suffering and grief are considered natural and necessary” (165). Adding a large proportion of ruthlessness to the narrative, Weststeijn notes that suffering “purifies the soul and raises man above the mere material” (165-6). These above-mentioned factors make Russian love-detective novel different from previous female detective fiction. The feminist voice and the solving of the riddle or the murder itself are not matters of primary importance; instead, the main character’s own personal inner growth as well as various milieus around her are what drive the plot and what the writers want to elaborate so that readers are more likely to identify with the heroine. S. J. Watson’s Before I Go to Sleep expands the field that crime fiction reaches. Actually, it establishes a new form that serves as an excellent example of contemporary literary works exhibiting various aspects of life like a kaleidoscope, which shows unlimited possibilities inviting readers to join in from different perspectives. Unlike preceding crime texts that are written by and about and for women, Before I Go to Sleep seamlessly pieces disparate elements like neuroscience, love relationship, female consciousness, psychological tension, and so on. Besides, it dismantles normally held view about character arrangement in crime fiction, which involves a crime committed fairly early and a series of questions regarding who hurts others for unknown reasons. In a psychological thriller like Before I Go to Sleep, the victim does not commission a private investigator to help her detect who the criminal is, nor does the criminal keep trying to endanger the victim’s life. As the victim, Christine the protagonist can only find out who hurts her years ago by her own keen observation every day because of her amnesia. Yet, Christine. 45.