47 pages • 1-hour read
Do You Remember?
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Reliability of Intuition
Tess has few memories of the last seven or eight years because of an experimental drug with which her husband injects her every night. This drug was meant to cause short-term memory loss, to help ease the burden of her terminal cancer diagnosis, but has resulted in much more significant gaps. Though Tess’s memory is faulty and she often doubts her perceptions, other characters’ behavior almost always confirms her hunches, regardless of whether she’s aware of their choices.
Tess’s intuition tells her that Graham isn’t trustworthy, despite the letter he claims she wrote to herself saying otherwise. On “Day One,” she says, “I don’t feel anything for him [and] the idea of this man even touching me makes my skin crawl” (31). Despite his claim that they’ve been married for several years, the presence of pictures showing a happy couple throughout their home, and the letter in her handwriting, Tess senses that Graham isn’t a good guy. Her belief that her “heart has a memory of loving [Ziggy]” further confuses her because she feels she ought to “have [some] memory of loving Graham” (28). Nonetheless, he continues to feel “like a stranger” to her (44), indicating that she never really loved him. This is confirmed later by her recollection of wanting to back out of her wedding to him and reunite with Harry. Her revulsion to Graham is likewise apparent in the eventual revelation that she found him having an affair with his secretary and stealing from her company. Tess may not have been consciously aware of all his wrongdoing, but her intuition raised many red flags.
Tess’s intuition similarly protects her regarding other characters and situations. Despite Lucy’s longstanding status as Tess’s best friend and the fact that Tess doesn’t recall or know everything Lucy has done, on “Day Five,” she’s “not in the mood for Lucy. It’s strange because she’s [Tess’s] best friend, but she’s not who [Tess] want[s] to be around […]. In fact, the thought of seeing her gives [Tess] a foul taste in [her] mouth […]. Lucy did something to me. Something bad” (315). Tess senses that Lucy isn’t trustworthy, partly because she always leaves herself messages to find Harry, not Lucy, and her intuition is on point. Lucy failed to support Tess when she was starting her business, then betrayed Tess’s trust with Harry, and even started an affair with Graham. Moreover, Tess senses that she can trust Camila, though she never recalls any memories of her caretaker. She even realizes on “Day Five” that “Harry going to see [her] father is a horrible mistake” (291). Though she can’t consciously recall information about her brain tumor, she senses that the news that comes out after Harry touches base with Douglas will bring only pain. In short, Tess’s intuition functions quite well, even when her memory does not.
The Relationship Between Memory and Identity
In the absence of a reliable memory, Tess gets so much conflicting information from her writing, her intuition, and other characters that she begins to doubt herself and her ability to accurately perceive what goes on around her. Even after she begins to suspect that Graham is drugging her, she wonders if it’s possible that he’s not. She fears “that somehow [she] got it all wrong, and [she] dragged Harry into [her] delusion” (170). Without her memories, Tess can’t know if she’s perceptive or delusional, intuitive or just paranoid. She doesn’t know who she is anymore because she can’t trust her memory.
At first, Tess hopes to rely on the letter she supposedly wrote to herself for accurate information about her current identity and life, but other personal messages leave her confused about what’s true. She thinks, “If there’s one person I can trust, it’s myself. Can’t I?” (26). However, her intuition suggests that Graham can’t be trusted and that the letter doesn’t tell the full—or even a correct—story. Then, when she learns that she named her dog Ziggy because—as she told Graham—she loved the comic strip by the same name, she thinks, “I never read Ziggy comics in my life. I lied to my husband. I must have named the dog after Harry’s bird. Except why would I do that? […] It doesn’t make any sense” (29). This feels like a secret message she left for herself, but she can’t figure out what it means. She’s equally baffled by the notes she consistently finds on her thighs, messages she wrote to herself. At one point, she says, “I took the advice I gave myself in my letter and I’m trying to relax. I still don’t understand why I wrote what I did on my leg, but it can’t possibly be true” (142). Without her memory, Tess doesn’t know what to think, whom to trust, or even if she can trust herself. She doesn’t know who she is or what’s true, demonstrating the close link between memory and identity.
After one particularly revealing “seizure,” Tess is momentarily certain that she knows what’s real and who she is. After the flashback, she reflects:
I don’t know what that was, but something tells me that what I just experienced was the memory of something that really happened to me. I discovered Graham had been stealing money from my company (and not to mention cheating on me). And then I tried to leave him (253).
She’s impressed by how calm and collected she acted, taking pride in this version of herself that feels increasingly accurate given her other experiences. The thought of returning to a life where she doesn’t know who she is or what’s true “is like a hand squeezing [her] heart” (253). This simile conveys how visceral Tess’s response to a real memory is and the pride she feels in herself when she’s certain that a memory really is her own.
The Dual Nature of Technology
Notably, Tess doesn’t typically remember that she has a phone, but whenever she has it in her hands, she seems to automatically remember how to work it. On “Day One,” she says, “I don’t know how, but it’s like I already know how to use this phone […]. Obviously, I learned how to use it at some point and the memory never left me. Sort of like riding a bike” (39). Her ability to remember the phone or fall in love with Ziggy so quickly reinforces her aversion to Graham. Tess’s cell phone, however, can be used to both help and hurt her, demonstrating the dual nature of such technology.
Because Tess is locked inside, unable even to access the backyard without assistance and surveillance, she’s hesitant to hand the phone over when Graham asks. She thinks, “Considering I’m locked in here, the phone feels like a lifeline” (110). It’s potentially the only way she can reach people who might help her if she needs it. However, Graham says, “I wanted you to have it so we could contact each other during the day when I’m away” (111). He wants to be able to reach her, he claims, though he never mentions that he can use the phone to track her movements. While the phone gives Tess a small sense of security, as though she isn’t entirely cut off from the outside world, it also permits Graham to be in constant contact with her and to surveil her without her knowledge.
While the phone allows Tess to be in contact with Harry, it gives Graham real-time information on her whereabouts at all times. Tess can reach Harry to tell him she got Graham’s keys and to meet her at McDonald’s, but, as Harry tells her, “he can track you through your phone. That’s the only reason he ever let you have it in the first place” (259). If Tess had left her phone behind at the house, she and Harry “would be on [their] way somewhere far away right now” (265). Therefore, it gives Tess access to Harry but increases Graham’s access to her, especially because she isn’t very tech-savvy. It even gives Tess a sense of security, knowing that she can use the phone to reach her father, until Harry learns that the number Graham programmed in the phone isn’t Douglas’s, so it also provided Tess with a false sense of security. In short, Tess sees only the technology’s potential benefits and fails to understand the pitfalls and disadvantages. She’s unaware of the phone’s dual nature, which enables Graham to manipulate her further.
Unlock every key theme and why it matters
Get in-depth breakdowns of the book’s main ideas and how they connect and evolve.
- Explore how themes develop throughout the text
- Connect themes to characters, events, and symbols
- Support essays and discussions with thematic evidence