Maggie's Independent Reading Term 3

Christine’s husband, Ben, is my prime suspect for the cause of her memory loss. He has an advantageous position over her that he uses to keep Christine from her objective, shown through his patronizing of her, his lies, and his decision about memory treatments. Before all that, though, I think the whole situation very suspect. Ben has all the control in their relationship, as Christine is dependent on him telling her about her whole life, and she has no choice but to believe him. All of Ben’s characterization leads to the same suspicion of his guilt. Firstly, he is very patronizing of Christine. He smiles when he explains her story to her, he approaches her like she is a “frightened animal”, and tells her he knows and understands all of her worries. He also attempts to have sex with her, though knowing she views him as a stranger, and she has to push him off, much to his extreme disappointment. He thinks he deserves this sex and that he knows everything she thinks, meaning she's le...

Christine, the main character in Before I Go To Sleep, is living in a fractured world. Every night when she goes to sleep, Christine loses all of her adulthood memories due to brain damage from a car accident. She then awakes not knowing where she is nor who the man sleeping next to her is, and so every day has to be told by her husband what happened, how she lost her memory, and how she survives. Her goal is to find out her whole story on her own, to regain her memory and determine who she can trust. This problem does interest me. I think humans have an innate curiosity about memory loss like hers. The concept of amnesia is very pervasive in our media (though it only affects a small percent of the world’s population), as seen by the popularity of movies like 50 First Dates , the Jason Bourne movies, and many soap operas . Memory loss is a great, if hackneyed, plot device, infusing the story with an immediate sense of vulnerability and danger. All of our stability and sense of s...