Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver (A Psychoanalysis)

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver is a novel that follows Samantha Kingston as she repeats the same day over for a whole week. Lauren Oliver wrote this story as a way to understand teens and what influences them to behave in certain ways. During this week Sam finds out how disconnected she has become from her authentic self. Sam also finds herself in a rescue mission to save Juliet Sykes, a girl who has been constantly harassed her whole life. Sam belongs to a clique of mean girls who she psychoanalyzes through the reconstruction of the same day and significant events relived over and over again. They have sunk themselves so low that even they have no idea why they became this way. It is up to Sam to find how where everything went wrong. Oliver uses the narrator as the psychoanalyst and the patient to discover how she and her friends betrayed their true nature and the reasons for these choices.

How To Interpret Literature author, Andrew Parker claims that it is tough to analyze fictional characters because they are just characters on a page. Before I Fall is a realistic fiction novel where anyone can relate to these characters. The repeating of this day opens Sam’s mind to all her wounds. Experiencing this same day over for a week is like an out of body experience because she realizes how much she has faked her way through life. Unlike the clinical setting in a psychiatrist office, Sam actually has to live through these painful experiences to grow. In doing this Sam recognises how low she has become; “It’s weird how much people change. For example, when I was a kid I loved all of these things - like horses and the Fat Feast and Goose Point… one after another, replaced by friends… It’s kind of sad.” (Oliver 276).

The unconscious and conscious plays a big role throughout this novel. At first when Sam is going through all of these repeats, she refuses to recognise memories that have been repressed in her unconscious. They’re defending themselves by denying who they are at the beginning of the story. The story takes place on Valentine's Day where everyone is invited to a crazy Valentine’s Day party at Kent’s house. Juliet Sykes arrives and criticizes Sam and her friends for the shallow and pathetic individuals they have become. Juliet is more aware of what is happening around her because she never traded her values and identity for popularity.

Juliet needs someone to talk to and in essence, Oliver writes the story to tell her repressed tale. Parker states; "The telling could never tell the entire tale… even a realist text that presents itself as telling the whole tale has unconscious tale that it represses."[125] Juliet has in her mind repressed issues that have been causing psychic pain that needs a voice and an outlet immediately because she doesn’t find life worth living anymore. Before Juliet commits suicide, Sam asks if she wants to talk, Juliet brushes it off; ‘“I’m not going anywhere,” Juliet says. She stares out at the road, and I think I see a small, sad smile playing on her lips. Then it’s gone’ [Oliver 322]. Juliet attempts suicide seven times in this recreated day. This pattern named repetition compulsion by Freud allows Juliet to work through her emotions to get to the root cause of her troubles in order to reach adulthood [Parker 120].

Parker also describes another term called, the mirror stage. ‘The mirror image makes the seemingly fragmented bits and pieces of the infant’s body seem to cohere for the first time’ [139]. Before I Fall makes sense of the characters actions. Sam just needed to get a different point of view by going through the same day seven days in a row. Sam gets to know who her friends are throughout as she unfolds the events. Sam has never understood herself until now; “... things become beautiful when you really look” [Oliver, Pg. 344]. Her memories that have been stored in the unconscious are revealing themselves slowly to her through the repetitive days to help her evolve to the person she wants to be. In a sense, Sam gave up her mirror image in all aspects that made her a complex self to belong within the whole of her peer group. When she identifies her complex parts of self again she begins to become whole. Sam finds out how alone she is in the world and sees what her life could have been like if she went down the wrong path; ‘And I think of all the times I sat in squirming silence, terrified I would say or do the wrong thing, terrified the dorky, lanky, horseback-riding loser inside me would rise up and swallow the new me’ (Oliver 409). Sam realizes her forgotten aspects of herself; horseback riding, her sister and family, along with relationships, when recognised as important aspects of self that give her a chance to fix what she can before she dies.

Repeating the same day over is making all the repressed thoughts return to Sam’s mind. She threw away what she loved just so she’d be accepted by Lindsay, a popular girl who teased her in middle school. Lindsay Edgecomb is the ringleader of the girls. She is described as a brutal person who never let’s anyone get in her way, but there's more underneath her mask. Lindsay’s attitude is only a cover up for her real feelings. Lindsay doesn’t let anybody inside because she’s afraid for people to see her weaknesses. As Parker comments, “When we feel threatened by our drives, we often defend against them and repress them” (114). Lindsay is repressing the emotions she needs to feel and whenever threatened lashes out. Juliet Sykes, who she constantly harassed, used to be best friends with Lindsay. Sam brings up the subject where she witnesses; "Lindsay opens her mouth and then closes it, 'She’s a freak.' She whispers fiercely, but I see something in her eyes I’ve never seen before, an expression I can’t quite identify." (Oliver 310-311).

All these characters have hidden depths that they don’t want anybody to find out about because they think they’ll be treated in a different way. When threatened, Freud called the return of the repressed when; “Repressed drives can pop back up in the form of neurotic symptoms, disguised representations of unconscious desires” (119). Lindsay puts herself at risk, as a bulimic, her manifestation of neurosis. One year, Sam found out that Lindsay was bulimic. All she says to Sam who witnesses this is, “It’s not a habit or anything. I think I just ate too quickly” (Oliver 251). Lindsay is so focused on her self image that her health doesn’t seem like a problem.

The characters are running away from their fears denying what is happening. They are all refusing to see what evils they have really become. Sam and Lindsay’s other friends Elody and Ally don’t have the screen time like Sam and Lindsay, but they’re pushed around so much. Elody is the nice one of the bunch and lets herself be pushed around by Lindsay’s power because she is afraid of her. When on the way to school during one of the days Sam calls out Elody for how weak she is, “‘How come you never stand up for yourself?’ She shrinks back a little, her eyes darting between Lindsay and me… ‘I knew it, you're scared of her’” (Oliver 191-192). Sam thinks Elody would be better off without Lindsay. Sam outright says that Elody never belonged to the status of a mean girl. In some ways Elody is the superego of the group because she is the conscious, authority and law (Parker 119).

Often, during psychoanalysis, the analyst is allowed to free associate with others around them, which allows them to open up about their emotions. Sam does this both with Kent, the guy she should have been with, and Juliet, the real victim of the story. After all the time Sam spends under Lindsay’s wing, this whole week makes her look at herself before she became this awful person. She spends time trying to find the clues as to what she is doing wrong. She chose status over being herself and now she is trying to talk Juliet out of killing herself. She tried to relate herself to Juliet by saying that they were the same person.

Lindsay has been suppressing her thoughts for years and takes her anger out on others. One night where Sam failed once again at saving Juliet from running in front of a car, Sam ends up getting into a deep conversation with Lindsay which reveals more of what she is hiding under her mask. Lindsay reveals that Juliet covered for Lindsay when something embarrassing happened to her when they were kids. It has amazed Lindsay after all these years that Juliet never told anyone the truth. Juliet denied in defense of Lindsay that she has wet herself during the night. Juliet’s denial represses Lindsay’s fear and her anxiety about herself. After this Sam sees her best friend in a new light and realises that; "Lindsey’s not fearless. She’s terrified. She’s terrified that people will find out she’s faking, bullshitting her way through life, pretending to have everything together when she’s really floundering like the rest of us" (Oliver 407).

Sam’s story ends on a sad note because she sacrifices her life for Juliet. Through a psychoanalytic interpretation, Oliver exposes the multitude of repressions and neurosis that the characters struggle to overcome in their quest for self identification and peace. However, through the repetition process the only character that finds peace is Sam. Sam comes to find that she has made her whole life into a lie and when she dies nobody will know the real her, but herself, the ultimate goal of psychoanalysis. The last day is her final time that she can try to change everything and to accept herself.

Works Cited

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver, 2010, Harper Collins Publishers, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, New York 10022

How to Interpret Literature and Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies by Robert Dale Parker, 2008, Published by Oxford University Press 198 Avenue, New York, New York 10016