Before I Go to Sleep

Christine Lucas is the protagonist and first-person narrator of the novel. She is 47 but lost her memory when she was assaulted at 29. Sometimes she believes she is 20 years younger, and sometimes she thinks she is a child. As Christine has anterograde and retrograde amnesia, her capacity as a reliable narrator is severely restricted. She cannot recall past events, and new memories disappear when she sleeps. Consequently, Christine wakes each day with no concept of who or where she is.

Christine survives, she says, like “an animal. Living from moment to moment, day to day, trying to make sense of the world” (316). Readers share her uncertain, disoriented viewpoint as she pieces together the information available to her. The narrator’s anxiety and paranoia create corresponding emotions in the reader.

At the beginning of the novel, Christine’s lack of contextual knowledge makes her feel, she says, as if she is “floating […], completely without anchor, at the mercy of the wind” (110). Her world is claustrophobic and narrow, confined to the four walls of her home and her husband, Ben. Without a narrative of her own, Christine is vulnerable and entirely dependent on her husband’s version of events.