Overcoming Trauma and Alienation in My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh PDF Free Download
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FACULTAD DE FILOLOGÍA
GRADO EN ESTUDIOS INGLESES
TRABAJO DE FIN DE GRADO
CURSO 2024/2025
TÍTULO:
Overcoming Trauma and Alienation in My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa
Moshfegh
ALUMNO: Diana Hedzyk Vasus
TUTOR: Brian Crews
CONTENTS
1. Introduction and object of this study …………………………………………………. 1
2. My Year of Rest and Relaxation ……………………………………………………… 2
3. Neoliberal and consumerist society ….……………..………………………………… 5
4. Psychoanalysis ……………..…………………………...…………………………… 11
4.1.Generational, personal and repressed trauma …………………………………… 12
4.1.2. Alienation ………………………………..……………………..………… 16
4.2. The Self ……………………………………...….…………………………….... 19
5. A year of rest and relaxation …………………………………………………………. 21
5.1. After the year of rest …………………………………………………...………... 24
6. The last chapter symbolism …………………………………………………...…….. 26
7. Conclusion ………………………………………………………………….…...….. 29
8. Works cited ……………………………………………………………...……….…. 31
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1. Introduction and object of this study
The main focus of this study is Ottessa Moshfegh’s novel My Year of Rest and
Relaxation (2018). It considers whether the psyche can be healed or restored from trauma
through the awakening of our subconscious and unconscious activity while asleep. The essay
provides a close reading and analysis of the psychology of the unnamed narrator/protagonist
and her best friend Reva, particularly the protagonist, who focuses on re-defining and becoming
a new self by induced sleep. This quest for a “new self” has been defined as the search for her
own Nirvana state as described by Aldous Huxley in The Doors of Perception (1954). And for
that, it should be asked which mental processes the narrator goes through to achieve this, and
how sleep is connected to it. In order to understand the motives behind the protagonist’s actions,
this paper will delve into collective, generational and personal trauma, as well as exploring the
topics of alienation, repression and evasion. Furthermore, the social problems that a
consumerist and neoliberal society has provoked are also considered, using Reva (the
protagonist’s friend) as the main object to study such topics in terms of psychoanalysis. In spite
of the protagonist’s trauma induced in the contexts of both society and family, the protagonist
is able to work through her trauma and come to terms with her past experiences. She
experiences the different stages of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder); for example, her
dreams and nightmares are flashbacks, and her desire to sleep can be considered an attempt at
evasion. With regards to coming to terms with her traumas, attending Reva’s mother’s funeral
in Chapter Four can be seen as the episode of processing the trauma; the protagonist recalls her
parents’ death because of the doppelganger situation she has with Reva, leading her to come to
terms with her past, to process her grief and pain regarding the death of her parents.
Before going into the novel in detail, the sources used for its analysis should briefly be
considered. With regard to trauma and identity, Sigmund Freud, Thomsen and Berntsen, and
Jacques Lacan are used as the main sources. Freud’s psychoanalytic theories serve as an insight
into what is called “the mind”, which he defines as more than the conscious or rational part;
also, to understand human behaviour, there must be an appreciation of the role of an
unconscious faculty. This enables an understanding of the unconscious mechanisms that drive
the behaviour and identity development of our protagonist and Reva, and offers an insight into
how trauma shapes and plays with the psyche through Freud’s model. Thomsen and Berntsen’s
work serves to understand the nature of trauma, PTSD, and its consequences. Lacan’s theories
explore a more profound development of Freud’s idea of identity, using his concepts of “mirror
stage” and “the Self” to study the protagonist’s dynamic and relationships with others and her
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process of self-transformation. When discussing alienation, Jean-Paul Sartre’s ideas, the
notions of Marxist alienation and Debord’s Society of the Spectacle, reflect the disconnection
from both world and “the Self” portrayed through the characters, due to the pressures of a
neoliberal society and trauma. Nevertheless, the theories of these intellectuals are not only
connected to their specific topic, but are also interlinked with the other topics, creating an
overall vision and understanding of how “the Self” and identity are shaped by your external and
internal world - the psyche, mental state, societal and cultural frameworks.
The study will begin with a brief outline and summary of the novel, and its main concerns
followed by an examination of the social context that exerts its influence on the protagonist and
her friend Reva. The first section of the essay explores the themes of a neo-liberal consumerist
society and how such a society can lead to individuals experiencing alienation from themselves
and the world. This system brings about an existential crisis in Reva and the young woman due
to society’s imposition of a false definition of happiness based on wealth, external validation,
materialism, and unachievable beauty standards. A consideration of the effects on the psyche
of the protagonist follows with emphasis on distinct forms of trauma and alienation, leading to
an analysis of the protagonist’s psychological state, her trauma and PTSD symptoms, how they
affect her together with the neo-liberal society as well as the defense mechanisms reflected in
her behaviour.
Following this, there is an analysis of the protagonist’s year of sleep from a psychoanalytic
perspective, relating the passing of her year of sleep with her psyche. Then there follows an
analysis of the notions of identity and “the Self”, linked to the topics of trauma and society, and
Freud’s idea of the “Super-Ego”, “Id” and “Ego”. The study concludes by analyzing the
symbolism of Chapter Eight and the character of Reva. In all, this essay provides an insight into
how trauma plays an important role in the psyche, and how the narrator processes her trauma
through others as well as unconsciously.
2. My Year of Rest and Relaxation
My Year of Rest and Relaxation navigates the life of a young woman with no name, who
lives in Manhattan, New York, in the years 2000 and 2001. However, the moment of writing is
after the 9/11 attacks, in which the protagonist’s best friend, Reva, dies. The novel follows the
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self-transformation journey of the young woman
1
whose desire is to disconnect from her past
and be reborn; this is due to not being able to work through her trauma. In order to achieve her
goal, the protagonist realizes that the only way is to sleep for a whole year, or rather, sleep
nonstop for several days only waking up for essential basic needs. This will be “a journey of
self-transformation through sleep, waking only occasionally to eat and use the toilet, in the
hopes that, after a year, she will wake up with a different outlook” (Sykes 1). The novel starts
with the unnamed protagonist already having sleeping breaks during her working hours in order
to be able to get at least her twelve hours of sleep a day, and due to her inheritance, the idea of
sleeping for a year is secured; so quitting her job in the gallery is the first step. In these sleeping
breaks, the protagonist has disturbing dreams about her parents, mainly her father, possibly
anticipating the further traumatic occurrences regarding her childhood and family that are
introduced later in the novel: “My father was always sick in my dreams […] Those dreams with
him where the most upsetting. I’d wake up in a panic, take a few more Rozerem or whatever,
and go back to sleep” (Moshfegh 63). The protagonist’s decision to hibernate for a year is purely
based on avoiding her emotions and present life, alongside trying to escape from the neo-liberal
consumerist society she lives in, as well as to escape from the existential doubt caused by not
understanding the meaning of life and living it in pain. Additionally, as mentioned at the
beginning of the novel in Chapter Two, the death of her parents caused the protagonist an
unbearable pain, one of the emotions she attempts to avoid. However, avoidance leads to
alienation, which helps her “achieve” her goal of not feeling her grief: “she used this alienation
from her emotions as a coping method for the anguish brought by the loss of her parents and
the sorrow it may bring her” (Lecheheb et al. 140). She believes sleep will provide an escape
from her reality, trauma and society, but that it will also give her the tools to become a new self
in a peaceful and relaxed manner, by being unconscious, alienated and disconnected from the
world and herself. Nonetheless, she will confront reality through her relationship with Reva,
and re-experiencing her past: Reva’s mother’s funeral mirrors her parents’.
This decision could be seen as the young woman searching for her own Nirvana state. In Indian
religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism…), Nirvana
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is a term used to portray the divine or
perfect state of mind that a person can achieve in life. It refers to a state of union with the natural
and spiritual world, a state of perfect freedom, peace of mind, happiness, and extinction of
1
Hereafter also referred to as protagonist, narrator and unnamed woman
2
In his first sermon after his enlightenment, the Buddha (the founder of Buddhism) set forth the Four Noble
Truths (one of the core teachings of Buddhism), the third of which was “cessation” (nirodha). This state of the
cessation of suffering and its causes is nirvana.
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suffering and pain (Lopez)
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. In order for the young woman to get access to her Nirvana state,
she uses an incredible amount of different kind of medicines and drugs, which she mixes
occasionally with alcohol and other narcotics, that put the young woman to sleep for three days
straight. Such medication is provided by her psychiatrist, Dr. Tuttle, who functions as a pawn,
as she grants the main instrument to get the project of sleep going. Throughout the novel, more
than ten different pills and drugs are prescribed like, for example Xanax, Nembutal, Ambien,
Vicodin, Percocet, Infermiterol
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, etc. These drugs have been prescribed with the idea of helping
the young woman to rest because apparently, she suffers from insomnia; however “It was a lie.
I was already sleeping upwards of twelve hours, from eight to eight. I was hoping to get pills
to help me sleep straight through the weekends” (Moshfegh 23). Surely, she believes, such pills
will make her sleep through days non-stop, and as a result, become disconnected from herself
and the external world. Rather than dealing with the complexities of her emotions and going to
therapy, the young woman decides that hibernating will make her life more tolerable if she
escapes “the prison of my mind and body” (18), while also searching for her state of Nirvana
and going into the journey of self-transformation.
The novel delves into the positive and negative sides of what sleeping for a year under the effect
of substances brings about, how her mental state and usage of drugs affects her relationship
with others, how the disconnection from the world and the self is presented, while also delving
into the narrator’s life experiences from her past and present. Additionally, at the end of the
novel the reader becomes aware that the narrative was written after the 9/11 attacks in which
Reva dies; in this last chapter there is a narrative shift into the present tense, soon after the
event, suggesting the topics of personal and collective trauma, and the repercussions of this
horrendous occurrence. In addition, the moment of writing after the 9/11 suggests the narrator’s
intention to process her trauma, and that event serves as a rupture in her emotional detachment.
The young woman’s year of sleep portrays her desire to avoid her life, while the act of
storytelling implies the intention to process her trauma; in other words, the protagonist is
processing her trauma through storytelling. According to Greenberg, the title of the novel
“deliberately and comically obscures the weighty psychic and existential stakes of her
character’s daily, yearlong effort to lose track of time” (191). In fact, this novel acts as a
confessional narrative that allows the protagonist to work on and overcome her personal trauma,
3
Lopez, Donald S.. "nirvana". Encyclopedia Britannica, 1 Feb. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/topic/nirvana-
religion. Accessed 16 March 2024.
4
Infermiterol does not exist in the real world, it’s a drug invented by the author for the purpose of the novel.
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committing herself to her journey of self-transformation and personal growth as a “full-time
occupation”, both day and night, the former and latter being “her sleeping and waking hours”
(Sykes 8), alongside exploring the idea of identity and what makes us human(s).
Gradually, the reader becomes aware of the several reasons behind the protagonist’s attempt to
completely isolate herself from reality: life with parents and their deaths, a toxic ex-boyfriend,
and the pressures of a neo-liberal society; all of which leads us to see the young woman’s
predicament as one of PTSD: traumas, alienation and an identity struggle. Moreover, Reva
works as a sort of distorted reflection of the protagonist, functioning as a doppelganger that
allows the young woman to become aware of and come to terms with her own personal issues,
even in family relations when the protagonist attends Reva’s mother’s funeral.
As remarked, one of the reasons behind the protagonist’s desire to alienate from reality are the
pressures of a neo-liberal consumerist society. Until she decides to cease it, her behavior,
lifestyle, even her acceptance of her boyfriend and other people’s behavior are all conditioned
by her acceptance of this kind of life. In the following section, what kind of society this means
and how it exerts its pressure are discussed.
3. Neoliberal and consumerist society
In My Year of Rest and Relaxation
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, Moshfegh criticizes the neo-liberal consumerist
society of their days through the narrators’ interactions with the world and people around her,
criticizing their superficiality, materialism, and emptiness. Before going into the novel in detail,
a background of what a neoliberal-consumerist society is is needed to understand this topic and
what the effects of such a society are.
Brown (2015), Sharzer (2022) and Sykes (2023) are considered as the sources that portray an
overall idea of this society and its consequences. In agreement with Brown, “neoliberalism
transmogrifies every human domain and endeavor, along with humans themselves, according
to a specific image of the economic. All conduct is economic conduct; all spheres of existence
are framed and measured by economic terms and metrics” (10). Neoliberalism is an economic
and political ideology focused on free markets, minimal government intervention, deregulation
and the privatization of public resources, where public services are commercialized, making
access dependent on market forces rather than a collective need. Also, citizens are viewed as
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Hereafter also referred to as My Year
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independent individuals responsible for their own success or failure. As a result, there are
inequalities in terms of the economy, as some struggle to meet the basic needs while others are
overcome by wealth and power. Moreover, citizens live in an environment with no
collectiveness but individuality because individuals focus on their own type of success, leading
to social relationships becoming fragile and transactional. Meanwhile, a consumerist society is
an ideology and culture based on consumption, where an individual’s worth, identity,
fulfillment, happiness and social status is founded on material possessions. As a result,
individuals enter in a cycle of desire and pressure to follow the societal expectations, arousing
negative feelings or psychological distress when such expectations are not achieved, as well as
having a capitalistic economic system, focused on production and profit, which goal is
economic growth and wealth accumulation. Finally, because of these ideologies, individuals
are disconnected from themselves, others and their environment as their lives are controlled and
dictated by market demands and consumption. As Sharzer states, “Alienation takes away the
capacity to relate to nature and others, leaving individuals in pieces” (58). These aspects of
society drive the protagonist to avoid living in it, leading to her alienation from the world and
other individuals. Nonetheless, Sharzer portrays escaping from such society not as something
negative; “but escapism is also negating, not just negative: it becomes a way to maintain a
coherent, psychic whole in the face of fragmenting social forces” (57); as mentioned before,
one of the reasons behind the protagonist’s desire to alienate from reality are the pressures of a
neo-liberal consumerist society. However, her friend Reva is the reminder of such society and
the type of person the young woman tries to avoid being, reinforcing the desire to disconnect
from such a world.
With regard to alienation, Debord’s Society of the Spectacle and Marxist alienation are useful.
Marxism is a concept introduced by Karl Marx, who argues that individuals living in a
capitalistic society become disconnected from themselves and others due to “the nature of
work”. This criticizes how a capitalistic society transforms the act of work into something
monotonous and repetitive, where workers are seen as tools for production of materials and
profit, where workers’ creations/production of goods/materials are dictated by competition and
the current needs of the market rather than the worker’s creativity, creating a sense of
disconnection from themselves and others as they are reduced to act as a machine and cannot
fulfill their potential. Shazer explains that work could be creative and fulfilling; however, it
becomes a necessity and even a burden limiting creativity and freedom, although individuals
find a sense of “self-respect” because they are contributing to society: “From a potential
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expression of creative capacity, work is turned into something that is forced, as a simultaneous
source of self-respect and erosion of autonomy” (Sharzer 14). This is seen at the end of Chapter
One when the narrator explains her role in the art gallery and presents a description of the work
of several artist which she summarizes as “canned counterculture crap” (36), art with no
meaning or deep value.
While Marx focuses on alienation through labor and production and the economic structure,
Debord focuses on the other side of the coin, on alienation through consumption and cultural
structure. Society of the Spectacle portrays how individuals living in such society are more
influenced by ideas, fantasies or desires that fuel consumption. The Spectacle also portrays how
individuals interact more with “representations” rather than reality, reinforcing their alienation
from having genuine social interactions with others. As a result, these social interactions are
mainly based on images and appearances rather than connection. These “representations” could
be images, advertisements or even social media nowadays. The character of Reva represents
perfectly these ideas. From the beginning of this book, she functions as a portrayal of that
consumerist society and the impact it has on her psychology, how her life has been controlled
by capitalism, work, social status and fashion, beauty standards, economic systems, etc. In other
words, her persona represents the struggles of living under societal expectations and ideals,
where people’s social value, worth, identity, relationships, mental health and happiness are
dominated by a capitalist, consumerist and neoliberal world. But as Bernt argues, her persona
also “functions as a direct foil to the emotionally detached and, in her own words, “effortless[ly]
beautiful” (10) narrator” (15), meaning that Reva’s role not only allows the reader to see her as
the reflection of the protagonist, but also lets the young woman recognize herself.
In the novel, capitalism is represented by the narrator’s job at an art gallery where art’s value
and meaning are non-existent: “Ping Xi’s work first appeared at Ducat as part of a group show
called “Body of Substance,” and it consisted of splatter paintings, à la Jack-son Pollock, made
from his own ejaculate” (37). Here, Moshfegh portrays in great words the stupidity of
capitalism, how artwork has been replaced by the most nonsensical and underworked pieces of
“art” that do not convey any real value nor significance. The only purpose is to create another
product to be commercialized, bought and sold under bold and empty statements: “He titled the
abstract paintings as though each had some deep, dark political meaning. Blood-Dimmed Tide,
and Wintertime in Ho Chi Minh City and Sunset over Sniper Alley” (37), trying to give somehow
a meaning and value to those paintings in order to sell. This leads to art (and those abstract
paintings) becoming a piece of luxury that is only valued for how much it costs. Moshfegh’s
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work presents consumerism within her characters, through whom the author has the opportunity
to criticize society. While the unnamed narrator rejects her environment, and her hibernation
serves as a response to the extreme demands of consumerism, Reva embodies those consumerist
and neoliberal ideals. Nonetheless, the narrator is able to have her year of rest and relaxation
due to her parent’s inheritance (her parents died), leaving her financially stable to the point of
not having to work for a long period of time. As Sykes argues, “Instead of embracing the
freedoms of the flexible labor market available to her as a privileged young woman” (7), the
unnamed woman finds her job absolutely boring and worthless as the gallery is more interested
in her beauty rather than her opinions: “flexible economy were only truly open to those women
whose families had the necessary capital to support them” (6). So, “protected by her financial
privilege, she therefore chooses to reject neoliberal work culture and sleep away her career”
(7). Regardless of the narrator’s efforts to refuse to be part of a consumerist society, she remains
trapped withing the system: “She never caught on that I was having her call in my refills to my
local Rite Aid in Manhattan” (Moshfegh 53); or when she unconsciously bought an expensive
coat without needing one. Her hibernation comes with the price of being dependent on drugs to
be able to sleep for days, consequently making her be under the influence of consumerism, an
escapism that demands constant consumption:
“Try these, she said, handing me a sheath of prescriptions. “Don’t fill them all at
once. We need to stagger them so as not to raise any red flags.” She got up stiffly
and opened a wooden cabinet full of samples, flicked sample packets of pills out
onto the desk. “I’ll give you a paper bag for discretion,” she said. “Fill the lithium
and Haldol prescriptions first. It’s good to get your case going with a bang. That
way later on, if we need to try out some wackier stuff, your insurance company
won’t be surprised […] Use reason when you feel you can. There’s no way to know
how these medications will affect you.” (Moshfegh 24 & 25)
Considering Moshfegh’s critiques towards society, Dr. Tuttle performs as an image of society’s
disregard regarding mental health in the healthcare system, along with mankind’s desire to
convert everything into a selling business. The author of My Year criticizes the
commercialization of aspects of everyday life, including art, therapy, mental health, self-care,
identity… Unfortunately, even though Dr. Tuttle could have taken the direction of offering
therapy and understanding to her patient, she is more interested in prescribing pharmaceuticals,
some of which are new and not scientifically well studied. Along with not feeling worried about
her patient overdosing or taking incompatible pills that could lead to severe health issues or
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even death, her character is the reflection of a humankind that prioritizes quick, easy fixes and
profits over well-being.
Nonetheless, considering the narrator’s main purpose when contacting Dr. Tuttle, this can also
signify that the prescription of such medications is due to the young woman lying to her about
her mental state: her lack of sleep, inventing dreams and information about her past, presenting
the struggles in her daily life in a way that the use of medication is highly needed, as in the case
of sleep and invented dreams. Thus, the discourse of self-care and self-help “are dismissed as
hollow and commercial” (Greenberg 193). Although nowadays there is more emphasis on
prioritizing mental health; while trying to give access to every person to have real constructive
therapy with a specialist, profits are still on the table. The idea of free therapy is something that
a consumerist society does not consider; nor is it contemplated.
As mentioned previously, Reva serves as a key to understanding the psychological effects of
living in a consumerist and neoliberal world. She is endowed with qualities that present her as
only interested in achieving the ideals and following the norms established by her society:
achieving the perfect body, a high position in her job, great financial stability and having the
opportunity to purchase expensive clothing, and as a result, achieving a social status that aligns
with societal expectations. Reva’s main struggles are present throughout the entire novel: “I
spat the rice out and carried all the containers of Chinese food to the garbage. Then I opened
each pint of melted ice cream and poured the contents down the drain. I imagined Reva would
gasp if she saw all the food I was throwing out, as if eating it all and vomiting it back up wasn’t
just as wasteful” (Moshfegh 114). Her desire to fit in with the beauty standards of society has
led her to develop an eating disorder – mainly referred to and known by the acronym “ED” –
in her case, Bulimia Nervosa
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. Reva “counterbalances” her “self-destructive tendencies by
playing into the socio-cultural demands set forth by a consumer-based beauty economy” (Bernt
14). Even though such beauty standards are not constantly and literally talked about in the
novel, the mere idea of what it involves is very well known in our present world, as such
standards have not changed. Moshfegh’s work is a response “to female anxieties surrounding
the paradoxical nature of an industry which at once highlights the issues with— while
conveniently providing the solution to— that problem which is ‘to have a female body” (Bernt
14). But how is it the idea of “this is how women’s body should be” is present in Reva’s life?
6
“Bulimia nervosa is characterized by recurrent episodes of binge eating followed by inappropriate compensatory
purging behavior to prevent weight gain” (Mehler 875). Mehler, Philip S. "Bulimia nervosa." New England
Journal of Medicine 349.9 (2003): 875-881.
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How does it create an impact on her mind to the point of playing with her psychology? As
disclosed before, Reva and the protagonist live in a civilization that indirectly “obliges” people
to follow certain ideals, but still leaves room to have the personal “choice” of following them
or not. Unfortunately, that “choice” is presented as an illusion, even though the unnamed
woman decides to escape from her reality, her “choices” are based on or have been limited by
consumerism, her consumption of pills and other drugs. Subsequently, modern society presents
its ideals as the road to achieving happiness, stability, and meaning in life. That is to say,
people’s identities are shaped by how they look, what they own, what status they have, which
relationships they have (personally and business wise), etc., placing pressure on individuals to
optimize themselves and achieve success based on the result of personal effort. As Sykes
argues, “neoliberalism’s goals of economic expansion and competition have been disseminated
on an individual level, to become the “rationality” through which humans relate to one another
and themselves” (3). A neoliberal society usually focuses on individual achievements rather
than collective well-being, creating a sense of disconnection from the world and others, while
weakening social bonds. My Year’s characters portray how neoliberalism reduces human beings
to their ability to consume, produce and compete in the marketplace, “whose sole purpose is to
enhance their economic value” (Sykes 3); in simple terms, an object that maintains the
movement of money and leads to social economic growth.
As mentioned before, Reva’s life is filled by the “deprecating culture of female self-
objectification” and self-help books; these have led her to a spiral of insecurities that later on
have consequences on her mental and physical health, like alcohol consumption, eating
disorder, “a growing substance dependency”, as well as her unhealthy relationships with men,
in particularly her “toxic and soon-to-be-married ex-boyfriend” (Bernt 16). Reva’s bulimia,
“her unacknowledged drinking problem and her borderline obsessive affair with her married
boss” portray how such destructive behaviours are “tragically accepted and even expected of
young women” (16). In the final chapters of the novel, when the young woman is gifting her
possessions to her friend, according to Taylor, “It’s all stuff Reva could never afford, but will
also never be slim enough to wear, so their presence in her closet will only ever be a torture to
her. And yet she accepts them gratefully, even greedily, a reaction which fills both the narrator
and the reader with equal parts pity and disgust” (246). Reva’s reaction in that moment portrays
how her environment and her society have driven her to live a life of self-destruction where joy
and fulfillment are only achieved by having a specific type of female body and a very high-paid
job (wealth): “They kind of fit [..] This is good motivation to stick to my diet, Reva said […]
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Bacon and eggs for the next six months. I think I can do it if I really set mind to it” (Moshfegh
256). The novel delves into the pressures and unrealistic ideals faced by women in a neoliberal
and consumerist society, where beauty and appearance are commodified, highlighting how
neoliberalism promotes gender inequalities by reinforcing superficial standards of success for
women, promoting feminine empowerment through consumption.
The pressures of living in a neo-liberal consumerist society clearly influence the human psyche
as seen with Reva, who perfectly portrays the struggle of living by such models and
expectations. However, the situation of these characters is also the result of trauma. In the
following section, human psyche, alienation, trauma, and its effect with regards to these
characters will be discussed.
4. Psychoanalysis
My Year of Rest and Relaxation regularly travels to the 1980’s and 90’s in order to
present the narrators memories about her childhood and adolescence, using flashbacks as a
technique. This occurs in her bad dreams in the supply room and more importantly, when she
stays at Reva’s house for her mother’s funeral. There is a clear link between these forms of
remembering and what occurs because of PTSD: “the symptoms of the trauma are expressed in
the form of nightmares or flashbacks, characteristically, the event is experienced again with full
force but perceived as incomprehensible and belonging in the present” (Onega et al. Intro 11).
The novel focuses on the present life of the young woman and her hibernation progress to
become a new self, but in addition, her mind revives punctual moments of her past that defined
her persona and altered her brain chemistry. Each character in Moshfegh’s work serves an
important role to depict the traumas that the novel deals with, and how the characters’
responses, copying mechanisms and avoidance of such traumas are portrayed. This section of
the essay will delve into exploring the protagonist’s and Reva’s personal trauma, alongside
exploring the themes of alienation and the construction of the self-based on others. This section
also touches on other subjects such as collective trauma and generational trauma, avoidance,
depression, grief, childhood trauma, toxic relationships, repressed trauma, disaster trauma,
existential crisis, etc.
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4.1. Generational, personal and repressed trauma
In the novel, the narrator presents several dreams, and several vivid memories and
flashbacks from her childhood and adolescence; most of these flashbacks and dreams recall
interactions with her parents, Reva and her toxic ex-boyfriend. This literary technique helps the
reader to understand the narrator’s persona, how her past experiences have shaped her character,
motivations, priorities and actions, and to comprehend her trauma. Trauma refers to a disturbing
or distressing event in an individual’s life that causes significant emotional pain as a response.
Additionally, trauma responses are the conscious or unconscious mechanisms that the
individual uses to attempt to “deal” with the trauma, such as: evasion, repression, repetition,
alienation, disassociation, humour, etc. Nonetheless, when the trauma persists because it has
not been processed, trauma symptoms arise indicating PTSD, such as: avoiding feelings or
places that reminds of the trauma, negative thoughts, flashbacks, recurring memories or dreams
of the traumatic event, engaging in destructive behaviours, etc. Traumas can be caused by
several types of experience
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; violence, abuse, accidents, natural disasters, and some traumas
can be recurrent in life. In this essay, Freud’s work, and specifically Thomsen and Berntsen
work (2009) present the nature of trauma and PTSD, and its consequences:
PTSD is characterized by three groups of symptoms: (1) re-experience symptoms
such as recurrent, intrusive memories and thoughts, (2) avoidance symptoms such
as avoiding thoughts, feelings and other stimuli associated with the trauma and (3)
arousal symptoms such as sleep and concentration difficulties. (580)
In the novel, the narrator reflects the first two groups; her nightmares and flashbacks of
memories are group one, and her desire to sleep without dreams is group two. PTSD is when
those trauma symptoms persist and interfere with daily life. Furthermore, “the memory is
internally fragmented and incomplete when accessed through voluntary recall whereas it often
comes to mind involuntarily in the form of intrusive and highly vivid flashbacks” (Thomsen
and Berntsen 581). Regarding the idea of the psyche, Freud states that “memory-traces” are
unrelated to “the fact of becoming conscious”; instead, memories are more powerful and
durable “when the process which left them behind was one which never entered consciousness”
(Freud 19). In addition, this portion of the essay will explore the depth of the protagonist’s
relationship with her parents, and how their conflicts and broken relationship affect the
7
Examples: domestic violence, sexual abuse, childhood abuse, car accident, mental abuse...
13
protagonist’s future friendships, love life, brain chemistry and her persona after several
traumatic events.
The narrator’s parents have been portrayed as two opposite poles that were united by one
unpleasant reason, pregnancy. While her father is described as a “hardworking man”, her
mother is presented as a “lazy” woman that resents and “blames” her husband for leaving her
pregnant at the age of nineteen, and for making her “[drop] out of college to marry him”
(Moshfegh 48). The young woman depicts her father as a “nonentity”, in the manner of “a
stranger gently puppeting his way through his life at home with two strange females he could
never hope to understand” (47). This quotation perfectly conveys her dysfunctional family; their
relationship with each other and their interactions are only maintained by the fact they
conceived a daughter and became a family; they are indirectly forced to be together. As seen,
the protagonist’s father is practically absent in her life. Even though he is depicted as a
“hardworking man” for his family, he also is portrayed as emotionally distant and detached
from his daughter and wife. The author does not explore the father-daughter relationship;
however, Moshfegh does delve into the mother-daughter union, presenting the narrator’s bond
with her mother as the central source of her emotional distress. While the father is described as
a “dull”, “joyless”, “quiet” and absent person, the mother is depicted as an emotionally
unavailable person with a “cold aura”; a “bedroom drunk”, self-centered and distant person:
“My parents barely seemed to notice I existed” (65). In accordance with Flores et al., a family
environment has the ability to “impact children’s experiences, life trajectories and emotional
development and have been previously associated with mental disorders” (148). Growing up in
a family where parents are not present physically nor in terms of emotional/psychological
support, and where affection and love are not genuinely shown, contributes to the development
of mental issues in adulthood. The after-effects of this are awakened in adulthood, which is
seen through the person’s actions, personality and way of life.
Delving into the protagonist’s struggle to connect and form trusting relations with people, this
is the result of relatives’ absence and not showing care towards her emotional needs. An absent
father and an emotionally absent mother – reinforce the sense of abandonment that the
protagonist’s feels, leaving her feeling unloved, neglected and unworthy of fondness.
Additionally, the young woman develops trust issues due to how her relatives disassociate
themselves from their daughter. When trying to connect with people or build relationships, she
detaches from her emotions because she cannot emotionally rely on them due to her negative
bond with her parents. Because “She did not have a real conversation with her mother”, this
14
affected “her relationship with others later on as she detaches herself from everything and
everyone having no conversation with other[s]” (Lecheheb et al. 139). She prefers being cold
and distant with others over the risk of emotional pain. This reinforces her need for isolation,
as well as her inability to confront her vulnerability and emotional needs. Moreover, because
of her mother’s indifference towards her daughter, “indifference simply means non-existence”
(Lacan 240); this has led her to feel a sense of lack of self-worth, making her undergo an
existential crisis, doubting about her purpose in life and why she exists, and having a cynical
view of the world. Subsequently, the protagonist feels resentment and anger towards her mother
for failing her and for not providing love like a mother should have: “someone who cooked and
cleaned, kissed me on the forehead and put Band-Aids on my knees…” (Moshfegh 135); not
forgetting for failing to provide emotional support and care for her daughter when she was a
child: “I’m not your nanny, she has often said to me. But I never had a nanny” (135), nor as her
father was dying: “For the rest of his life – around four hours – I sat on the chair and cried while
my mother got drunk in the kitchen, ducking her head in every now and then to see if he was
dead yet” (140). Thomsen and Berntsen argue that “repeatedly re-experiencing the trauma may
also contribute to over-integrating the memory into identity, because the repetitive re-
experiencing (1) makes the individual appraise the trauma memory as central to identity and
(2) connects the trauma memory to a range of other material” (581). The lack of emotional
attachment experienced by her parents has created an emotional void in the protagonist’s adult
life, contributing to her detachment from others and her struggle to form trusting relationships;
all this becomes part of her identity: “All infantile and childhood patterns of relating are
actualized or enacted in adult relationships” (Ritter 177). This coldness and indifference
towards friendships and people in general appears through her friend Reva. Even though the
author portrays the inner turmoil and struggles of the narrator caused by having a dysfunctional
family, it does not mean her parents did not take any kind of responsibility regarding their child;
they knew they “have a certain responsibility to prepare [their daughter] for life” (Moshfegh
67). They provided their daughter with a roof, clothes, education, money, but not the
psychological interest and care that is needed for a person growing up; their concept of
responsibility and caring for a child was superficial.
As mentioned before, one of the most relevant aspects of trauma is that it may develop into
PTSD when it’s an unresolved trauma
8
. In this case, the narrator’s flashbacks, memories and
nightmares become central to her identity, life and psychological state, as those are trauma
8
Disclaimer: not every individual who experiences trauma may experience PTSD.
15
responses. Freud explains that when the conscious mind cannot process, cope or accept an event
in life, it represses it leaving it in the unconscious mind evolving into trauma, fear, guilt,
anxiety…, and may develop defense mechanisms. However, the major problem with repression
is the return of that event; but how does it come back? Freud states that repressed trauma can
resurface through jokes about trauma, dreams, the “uncanny”, manners, and others. The
protagonist’s recurrent memories, nightmares and flashbacks of her parents and interactions
with other people function to portray her inability to repress her past completely, or to cope
with it. Furthermore, these present how deeply embedded her trauma is; the more the
protagonist tries to evade them, the more her subconscious mind resurfaces those memories
through flashbacks. As previously mentioned, the narrator’s main goal is to achieve a “new
self” and decides that the best method to do so is by sleeping for a year; so sleep can be
considered as her defense mechanism. Ironically, these attempts to escape from her emotions
and reality force her to confront them indirectly, suggesting that trauma must be acknowledged
and processed, or your (unconscious) mind will force you to face up to them through dreams
and nightmares, flashbacks, recognitions and repetitions. In Chapter Four, the funeral of Reva’s
mother serves as a trigger that makes it possible for the narrator to relive past experiences with
her parents and her parent’s funeral (in this, Reva is also central). The narrator’s fragmented
traumatic memory transforms into a coherent narrative recollection of her past that allows her
to come to terms with it and even change her attitude towards Reva at the end of the novel.
In My Year, the concepts of evasion and alienation are presented; both involve a sense of
detachment and dissociation, however, both concepts can be differentiated by who or what
causes that disconnection; evasion is voluntary, and alienation is caused by external forces. The
young woman’s aim to “get rid” of her memories and avoid processing her feelings regarding
the relationship with her parents and their deaths can be seen as evasion, because it is her
personal choice, as she actively tries to evade from reality by sleeping away her days.
Nevertheless, her efforts to evade reality are not only caused by personal struggles but also by
the neo-liberal society as seen in the previous section. Unlike evasion, alienation is usually
caused by external forces such as capitalism and society, trauma, and societal expectations,
creating a deeper sense of detachment from relationships, emotions, herself and life. In the next
section, alienation is discussed as one of the consequences of living in such a neo-consumerist
society, and how trauma results from personal, repressed experiences; nonetheless, the effects
are all part of the same result on the individual.
16
4.1.1. Alienation
As discussed in an earlier section, an inevitable consequence of living in “the society of
spectacle” is alienation; the individual comes into contact with reality and others through their
representation, through the image or the commodities that become a reflection of the
represented self. In simpler terms, personal relations have somehow been supplanted, and this
has its effects upon the psyche as can be seen through the protagonist-narrator.
After her parents’ death, the protagonist’s psyche demonstrates her emotional distance and
indifference towards their deaths; nevertheless this indifference could be a defense mechanism
to avoid dealing with her loss: “I wanted to hold on to the house the way you’d hold on to a
love letter […] But I think I was holding on to the loss, to the emptiness of the house itself, as
though to affirm that it was better to be alone than to be stuck with people who were supposed
to love you, yet couldn’t” (Moshfegh 64). Rather than experiencing overwhelming grief,
sadness and pain, she feels a sense of numbness; however, regarding her mother’s death, she
also feels a sense of ambivalence due to their complicated relationship: “Although both parents
have died, that object is the alcoholic mother, who expressed love to her daughter only in sleep,
when they shared the king-sized bed vacated by the unfaithful father” (Greenberg 195). As a
result, the narrator has created a fixed image of her mother because of the mother’s attitude and
actions towards the young woman, internalizing her persona as a “somnolent mother” with an
“unloving cruelty” (Greenberg 195). The inability to deal with grief is part of what drives her
into her year of sleep, with the desire for isolation and avoidance of reality, but as later seen in
the book, she is able to process her loss unconsciously through induced sleep and her dreams,
which are the reflection of the mind and the psyche, a “royal path to the dynamic unconscious,
a direct glimpse of innermost mental nature, of the unacceptable shadow mind” (Lippmann
629). This avoidance serves to present her repressed emotions and trauma caused by her
parents’ death and relationship, alongside depicting how her emotionally unavailable parents
have made her unable to confront her emotional needs.
The lack of a paternal and maternal figure in the protagonist’s life has contributed to her
emotional coldness towards and detachment from others, alongside her inability to connect with
people: “None of us has much warmth in our hearts” (Moshfegh 49). Their dysfunctional
relationship, particularly the narrator’s relationship with her mother, also functions to portray
generational trauma. The mother’s mental health issues, the emotional neglect, detachment and
abandonment that the young woman experienced from her parents suggest that these
17
psychological issues have been passed down from previous generations. The mother’s inability
to emotionally support her child reflects her own psychological struggles and traumas.
Unfortunately, the said generational pattern of passing down psychological issues is difficult to
break unless the person can recognize their own trauma: “Trauma in our life can leave small
wounds, on a spectrum of calamities, or a series of repeated wounds as in cumulative trauma,
with total disorganization and manifestation of pathology. Responses to such events constitute
a deeply subjective experience that can shape as well as break us” (Ritter 179). The mother’s
personal trauma serves as an object to exhibit how generational trauma works and what its
psychological patterns are like. Both characters are correlated in terms of generational and
personal trauma; the mother serves as a picture to portray the results of child neglect and trauma
in adult life, while the young woman serves to demonstrate the process of emotional neglect
and traumas in childhood, adolescence and young adult life. Moreover, generational trauma can
also be seen through actions; her mother’s self-destructive behaviour – alcoholism and
substance dependence – worsened by her mental issues – depression – could have led the
protagonist to “follows the same steps in escaping reality depending on a huge amount of drugs
and having a deep desire to sleep” (Lecheheb et al. 138); the same self-destructive behaviour.
Focusing on the protagonist’s inability to form trusting meaningful relationships, the character
Trevor – her toxic ex-boyfriend – functions to portray the narrator’s lack of knowledge of what
love and healthy relationships really signify. Trevor also represents the consumerist and
neoliberal society; he is an older, wealthy man who is focused on status, wealth, and
materialistic values. In Chapter One, the narrator gives an overall description of Trevor’s
personality and character, describing him as a “recurring ex-boyfriend” who kept her “on a
long, tight leash for months – expensive meals, the occasional opera or ballet” and “tailored his
suits”, and someone who “knew how to manipulate me” (Moshfegh 29 & 34). Moreover, during
the novel, the narrator demonstrates Trevor’s limited emotional intelligence; he is unaware of
the consequences of his actions regarding having a romantic relationship with people.
Specifically in Chapter Three, the narrator demonstrates the disinterest Trevor feels towards the
young woman in the conversation they had when going to a party:
“Do you even like me” I asked him once he’d hung up.
“What kind of question is that?”
“I love you,” I was angry enough to say.
“How is that relevant?” (Moshfegh 102).
18
He “is unthinkable as a husband, a parody of emotional and sexual selfishness” (Greenberg
192). He embodies the society from which the young woman tries to escape and feels
disconnected. He is also a reminder of the protagonist’s parents, since Trevor is a self-centered
and emotionally unavailable person, who does not care about the young woman’s well-being,
taking advantage of her vulnerability and treating her as a disposable object whenever he wants.
This is related to Sartre’s idea of “The Look”. Bhandari explains: it “reduces the individual to
an object in someone else's reality and takes away the individual's sense of self and potential to
be […] the Look controls and reduces the individual to the status of the Other” (75); in other
words, the individual being looked at attempts to regain control, its subjectivity, by making the
observer “the other” instead, objectifying the observer. Their relationship is based on
manipulation, coldness, emotional abuse and emptiness, and “In the relationship with the ex,
the narrator’s youth and beauty were understood as the only things of value she had to offer”
(Taylor 246), because the narrator acted as a “reboot” every time Trevor’s self-esteem depleted
in his relationships with women of his age (Moshfegh 30). In terms of society, their relationship
reflects the difficulty of connecting with people in a neoliberal society, where individuals have
been degraded to their wealth status and beauty and social bonds have been weakened,
incrementing the sense of disconnection from the world and themselves. As Bernt argues, “the
novel generates a critique of the promises promoted through the economically fueled self-
improvement industry and which responds to an increasingly global version of neoliberal
capitalism which demands consumer participation” (15). Their relationship represents the
superficiality caused by that society. Hence, alienation is the result of both trauma and the
society the narrator lives in.
The protagonist’s relationship with Trevor only intensifies her desire to be disconnected and
alienated from the world. As Luckhurst argues, “trauma is something that enters the psyche that
is so unprecedented or overwhelming that it cannot be processed or assimilated by usual mental
processes”, residing in our subconsciousness. Such trauma presents itself “like an intruder or a
ghost”, usually when it was triggered by something or someone, or when the mind is processing
such trauma (499). Trevor functions as a catalyst for the protagonist’s psychological
deterioration, as he is a constant reminder of the trauma caused by the emotional neglect and
detachment experienced in her childhood and adolescence: “to be diagnosed with PTSD, the
individual must have experienced or witnessed an event that was associated with death, threat
of injury or threat of physical integrity of self or others and involved intense fear, helplessness
and horror” (Thomsen and Berntsen 580). This may be due to Trevor reflecting the narrator’s
19
trauma back at her, similar to the young woman seeing herself reflected in Reva’s experience,
leading her to eventually remember her experiences in waking hours, particularly at the funeral,
and work through her trauma. For these reasons, like her mother, Trevor also indirectly forces
her to escape from the pain he caused her, seeking her year of sleep in a self-destructive manner
(substance abuse). Rundel argues that psychedelic and psychoanalytical experiences “cover
similar ground but with different points of initiations”. Both experiences offer a “personal
transformation based on insight and new experience. Both tend to pull for a quality of
dedifferentiated subjective experience. Both often lead to reexperiencing and restructuring early
childhood in a way that is healing” (470). The “roots” of the young woman’s “self-alienation
and estrangement” from the world and herself “are embedded in her parental relationships”
(Lecheheb et al. 137), and have been inflected by her ex-boyfriend, Reva, other interactions
with people, alongside the consumerist-neoliberal society she lives in.
The young woman’s year of “rest and relaxation” is designed to allow her to achieve a “new
self”. This desire is conditioned by the forces already mentioned; however, paradoxically, her
desire to disconnect from herself, the world and her trauma makes her more connected to it (re-
experiencing events again through other people) allowing the protagonist to come to terms with
it. In the next section, Lacan’s concept of “The Look” is discussed in connection with the
protagonist and Reva, because their memories and trauma have shaped their identity.
4.2. The Self
Nowadays, the notion of a fixed or stable identity has been undermined in favour of an
idea of the self that is shifting and perhaps never quite realized. In the novel, Moshfegh explores
the theme of constructing the self, based on others through the protagonist’s interactions with
people, and her dynamic with society, demonstrating how identity is constructed by your
experiences and the world around you. The “Look” (Sartre) or “gaze” (Lacan) refer to the idea
that self-identity is constructed in relation to others, particularly through how others perceive
us. The former, the “look”, focuses on how our sense of self is based on perception, how others
perceive us, leading to a sense of alienation and loss of freedom as the individual focuses more
on how he is perceived by the other, becoming self-aware because the individual “performs”
for an audience. In other words, the individual feels objectified and judged by other individuals’
perceptions of them. The latter, the “gaze”, is an expanded idea of Sartre’s concept of the
“look”, but includes the idea of how individuals seek recognition and validation from the
20
outside world; however, this validation leads eventually to alienation and a sense of lack as a
sense of fulfillment of our desires depends on others. In Lacan, the first contact with the other
is in a sense through language, when a child learns to speak; then, this first contact with society,
the values and rules embedded in the language, is virtually intrinsic in the individual. In My
Year, the protagonist rejects these ideas as she does not want to be perceived at all, leading her
to disconnect herself from the neo-consumerist society, to escape from the “gaze” of a society
that judges and defines her. However, her friend Reva follows these ideas. Her identity is based
on how she wants to be perceived by others and she seeks validation; she desires to be a
beautiful woman by trying to achieve the beauty standards imposed by society, and her value
as a person is based on wealth, social status, how many designer clothes she possesses and her
job status… Seeking validation from the external world, however, her freedom to be herself is
lost as she focuses on how others perceive her persona. This leads her to a sense of alienation
from herself and a lack of unfulfillment due to being unable to achieve true happiness and some
of her goals, dissatisfied because her self-worth is defined by others:
Long before starting her hibernation journey, the protagonist had a troubled
relationship with herself because she never liked the fact that she is everything the
contemporary capitalist society tells women to be. As a result, she felt that her
identity was forced upon her to fit in this society. (Lecheheb et al. 137)
Even though the narrator tries to alienate herself, escape and rebel against society, that act of
rebellion has influenced her identity; that is, her opposition to society’s norms and ideals shapes
it. Her alienation and year of sleep highlights how deeply societal expectations are ingrained in
her persona, the result of “a performance moved by social constructions that provokes their loss
of presence and identity” (Hedzyk 5). Nevertheless, the young woman’s sense of self has also
been constructed through her interactions and relationships with others; her sense of self is
formed through them. Reva and Trevor highlight how the narrator has constructed her sense of
self through contrast, being the total opposite to them; but her keeping contact with them and
trying to be different from them, represents how they influenced her identity. According to
Bhandari, some “psychologists theorize that the process of identity-building begins when the
infant sees itself reflected in the mother’s eyes” (75); the young woman’s mother, as seen
before, had an enormous influence on the protagonist’s identity.
In terms of psychoanalysis, the author projects Lacan’s theory of “Mirror Stage”:
21
It is in the intersection by which the single signifier functions here in the field of
Lust, that is to say, in the field of primary narcissistic identification, that is to be
found the essential mainspring of the effects of the ego ideal. I have described
elsewhere the sight in the mirror of the ego ideal, of that being that he first saw
appearing in the form of the parent holding him up before the mirror. By clinging
to the reference-point of him who looks at him in a mirror, the subject sees
appearing, not his ego ideal, but his ideal ego, that point at which he desires to
gratify himself in himself. (Lacan 256-57)
The “Mirror Stage” is a crucial moment in the development of a child’s identity and knowledge
of the self; the child identifies with their reflection or image and begins to form a sense of self,
acknowledging that her persona is separate from others (Lacan 256-57). Nonetheless, this
image of themselves appears as whole and complete, but once exposed to the external world,
this image becomes fragmented because it transforms based on others, on finding validation
and constructing an identity through or by others. According to Lacan, the moment of “mirror
stage” creates the “Ego” (self-identity), but it is based on an illusion as individuals seek an
“idealized” or unreal version of themselves. In the novel, this appears as the result of living in
a neo-liberal consumerist society and trauma; the characters of Reva and the narrator perfectly
convey this.
As remarked, the narrator is able to work through her trauma through others, as with her
experience at Reva’s mother’s funeral. However, the subconscious and unconscious mind are
also major forces that portray how the narrator tries to evade her trauma, with the need to erase
her past, become a “new self” and achieve her Nirvana state. In the following section, the
Nirvana state is discussed in relation to the protagonist’s goals, alongside how the subconscious
and unconscious mind takes the lead in her daily life and reflect her repression. In fact, it leads
her closer to overcoming her trauma, working through it in an unconscious manner.
5. A year of rest and relaxation
There is a main contradiction in My Year; even though the protagonist is isolated by her
means from the world, she is still connected to it through Reva, her walks to the Bodega,
through her sleepwalking and unconscious self. Here, she reflects Freud’s model of the psyche;
the “Super-Ego”, the “Ego” and the “Id”. As mentioned earlier, the protagonist’s aim was to
find a psychiatrist that would prescribe her pills without any hesitation. As time progresses, Dr.
22
Tuttle prescribes new types of drugs for the young woman to “be able to sleep”, but these will
have serious secondary effects: “One side effect of Infermiterol […] is functional three-day
blackouts, during which the narrator seems to be doing, well, normal stuff: calling her ex, going
clubbing, possibly hooking up with strangers, and engaging in practices of basic grooming that
her conscious self has foresworn” (Taylor 246).
The protagonist, before locking herself in the apartment to fully commit to her sleeping journey,
decides to get rid of everything that was a reminder of her past, such as clothes, accessories,
furniture (except her mattress, dining table and a chair), books, dishes, cutlery, etc., and the
most valuable things are hidden. She only keeps clothes and things that she will need during
her hibernation: “I bought a new toothbrush and four months’ worth of toothpaste and Ivory
soap and toilet paper at Rite Aid. A four months’ supply of iron supplements, a women’s daily
vitamin, aspirin. I bought packages of plastic cups and plates, plastic cutlery” (259). Not only
that, but the protagonist also self-induced her isolation by locking herself from the exterior and
locking her unconscious self from any kind of technology that will make her be in contact with
the world. Including her VHS
9
tapes, VCR
10
, CDs, laptop, phone… As stated by Ritter, “By
discovering sounds, repeating melodies and rhythms as models of reorganizing speech and
emotions, he broke through his wall of silence with the outer world” (178). The protagonist’s
obsession with playing the same movies repeatedly could be linked to Ritter’s quotation about
music. The constant playing (even when asleep) of the same movies serves to create a sense of
belonging, control and calmness in the protagonist, a sense of control over her environment and
emotions which she does not feel in her life. Moreover, “Whoopi Goldberg, the narrator’s
favorite movie star, provides the nurturing maternal presence that the birth mother failed to
offer” (Greenberg 196). She uses the movies to escape and evade from her reality and emotional
void and the repetitions function as a coping mechanism. In spite of this, the narrator passively
interacts with the world because movies are still a form of connection to it. By getting rid of
everything that reminded of her past and present, and being left with a “blank canvas”, this
signifies that “her long hibernation is meant to operate as a simulated death that would allow
her to “resurrect” as a renewed, non-deviant person” (González 63). But, as Moshfegh states in
the novel, the protagonist “does not consider her hibernation as reintegration into the system,
but as “a quest for a new spirit” (González 63).
9
VHS: Video home system. It refers to the physical tape.
10
VCR: Video cassette recorder. A device used to play films on videotape or to record television programmes.
23
Early in the novel the narrator presents several memories with her parents, one of them focused
on the daughter-mother relationship: “She was not the type to sit and watch me draw or read
me books or play games or go for walks in the park or bake brownies. We got along best when
we were asleep” (46). Sleep was the action that united them and made them feel close to each
other with no sense of discomfort. For the narrator, sleep gives comfort, peace, relaxation and
warmth. Their moments of peaceful sleep and union have made a subconscious influence on
the protagonist’s year of sleep. In addition, the first thing that the young woman thinks about
her journey of becoming a new self, is doing it while asleep. Kostopoulos argues that even when
humans are awake, our unconsciousness “constantly operates in the background” of our minds
contributing to the “dynamic shifts” in our consciousness, which could be described as quick
adjustments to environmental changes and these can affect our perception of the world.
Moreover, the constant activity of the unconscious in the back of our minds helps the brain
transition between states of consciousness rapidly (232). Rundel specifies that Milner (1987),
“in particular, emphasized the importance of being able to shift back and forth between different
states of consciousness and modes of awareness as essential for psychic health and growth”
(472). Hence, her journey to a “new self” focuses on healing from the person that inflicted
major pain and a sense of abandonment; her mother. This decision represents her unconscious
desire to reset the trauma caused by her mother, and the symbolic attempt to re-make her life
without her mother’s influence. In other words, sleep functions as her defense mechanism; she
uses it to escape and evade from her problems and feelings. Her year of rest and relaxation
symbolizes the closure of her childhood, adolescence and young adult life, and the beginning
of her new persona and adulthood disconnected from her past.
This is reminiscent of what Docherty says about confession: “[it] seeks to establish a kind of
tabula rasa for the self, by humiliating the self to a point where it is a kind of ‘zero-point’, so
that it can be rehabilitated, but essentially with a new and refreshed identity” (11). After all, the
narrative (written after 9/11 as we can glean from the final chapter) forms a kind of confession;
a confessional narrative which result is the “new self”; “erasing” the former self and achieving
this tabula rasa, from which the individual can rebuild the self. As Nicola King says about
testimonies of the Holocaust, the narrative of these victims is an attempt to recover a narrative
of a self, of an identity, that the concentration camps had tried to erase. The attempt also seeks
to recover the innocence that has been lost, or to put in another words, to recover a time when
they “didn’t know that then” (that is, what would happen in the concentration camps). However,
it is not possible to rewrite the narrative to erase the knowledge, and to recover that innocence;
24
that posterior knowledge must remain (King 1). But in the novel, there is now a new perspective
on that knowledge; that of the “new self”.
5.1. After the year of rest
After the year of sleep, the protagonist’s plan worked; her brain has been rewired and
her desire to be reborn has come to reality. Although the young woman does not use psychedelic
drugs, the pills and drugs prescribed function in a similar way and lead to a psychedelic
experience that offers “a greater understanding of the transpersonal aspect of unconscious life”
(Rundel 470). The journey that she undertakes during her year of sleep resembles the personal
journey of Aldous Huxley in The Doors of Perceptions (1954). This essay was written under
the effects of psychedelic drugs while being supervised by a professional; the purpose was to
reach the state of Nirvana and his inner world. It delves into how hallucinogens can alter
perception and the human brain, and how they may or not lead you to your inner-world or the
Nirvana state, specifically Mescalin
11
.
Perception has been defined as a process by which individuals organize and interpret their
sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment; as Noë argues, our
perception is also determined by our actions, by what we do (1). Huxley’s insights on his
experiment are similar to the protagonist’s result of a year of sleep: perception alteration,
transcendence of the Ego, reducing valve analogy and “mind at large”. According to Huxley,
the use of hallucinogens creates a sense of change; the world changes into a distanced,
disinterested, and timeless space. In My Year, the young woman’s abuse of drugs submerges
her into an unawareness of time and surroundings while sleeping; “The carefree tranquility of
sleep gave way to a startling subliminal rebellion – I began to do things while I was
unconscious” (85); her perception has been altered. According to Kostopoulos,
In deep NREM sleep, we lose both primary consciousness (i.e. general awareness,
including perception and emotion) and secondary or subjective consciousness, or
the awareness of awareness, which depends on language and so is enriched by
abstract analysis (thinking) and the metacognitive components of consciousness
(self-reflection, or awareness of awareness) as well as volition. In dreaming, the
11
Hallucinogen. Psychedelic drug found in several species of cactus. May also be known as “Peyote”.
25
primary consciousness of sleep is regained but lacks volition and reflection of the
self and on reality. (231)
In The Doors of Perception, the concept of “mind at large” is a recurrent theme; it presents how
the human brain acts as a filter; in other words, our brain only acquires some information (input)
for survival purposes. Huxley states that using mescalin can “open” your brain, revealing a
broader and unfiltered consciousness and a bigger picture of what we consider reality; to put it
in another way, having more input with no limitations. In addition, this reducing valve analogy
can lead to the transcendence of the Ego, creating a unity and interconnectedness with our
deeper consciousness (Super-Ego). Huxley argues that some people have been born with a “by-
pass” that allows their brain to have more input in general. However, other people can acquire
a temporary “by-pass” “either spontaneously, or as the result of deliberate “spiritual exercises”,
or through hypnosis, or by means of drugs” (12), altering our perception. In the novel, the
protagonist’s intake of Infermiterol leads her to experiment an awakening of her
subconsciousness while asleep which Greenberg defines thus: “A kind of intrapsychic war
erupts between the forces of action and those of inaction” (198). Not only that, but the desire
of self-transformation also makes her be more connected to herself due to sleep, creating a space
of self-discovery and introspection: “Psychedelic experiences offer a faster and more dramatic
entrance to this territory, with focus initially on the very non-ordinary state itself, contained
carefully and thoughtfully” (Rundel 470).
After a year of alienation from herself and the world, the protagonist’s goal has been achieved.
In the last chapters, she takes the final step of her journey, reconnecting with herself and society,
seeing that in fact, she has been changed as well as her perception of the world. Rundel specifies
that the integration process into the world and oneself is grounded on a “day-to-day work of
bringing these changes to bear on relationships, ways of being in the world, and on one’s sense
of self. In this way, transformation needs to be absorbed at the speed of life, and based on
intentional efforts to apply insights to regular life” (476). However, the narrator’s re-integration
into the world is not immediate and is ambiguous as the novel does not offer a complete
conclusion about it. Throughout My Year, the protagonist is portrayed as a person who is
emotionally distant, whose perspective of the world is unfavourable, and is someone who does
not have an awareness of life’s fragility or awareness of mortality. Nonetheless, at the end of
the novel these main aspects have undergone a change of perspective, leading to a reconnection
with herself emotionally, shedding some of her discontent with the world by accepting it as it
is. She understands that the world goes on despite its issues, and that she can find new ways to
26
navigate in it. In the next section, the final steps to working through her trauma and achieving
her “new self” are discussed.
6. The last chapters’ symbolism
The last chapters could symbolize the end of the protagonist’s attachment to her
previous life and her relationship with Reva: “Reva nodded sincerely. In that moment, I think
our friendship ended. What would come later would be only airy remembrances of the thing
called love she used to give me. I felt a kind of peace about Reva seeing her off that day” (258).
Throughout the novel, the interactions between the narrator and Reva are presented by
flashbacks and present tense. Nonetheless, this is the moment where Reva starts to be portrayed
as a memory rather than something still present, a memory that later will be solidified.
Furthermore, in the former fragment there is a change of tone.
The narrator depicts Reva as someone who is materialistic, self-centered, and self-absorbed,
annoying, intrusive, dependent, and obsessed with the idea of beauty and class status. When
describing her, the protagonist occasionally uses a tone of frustration and cynicism towards her
superficial behavior and lack of understanding of emotional struggles, such as her problematic
relationship with her boss. Beside these, there are also moments where the tone is affectionate,
where the narrator empathizes and cares for Reva, such as when the young woman bought her
flowers or when she says “I love you” to Reva: “Through suppressing and denying unwanted
emotions, the individual suppresses this freedom as a defense mechanism which results in an
inauthentic existence and a sense of estrangement from one’s self” (Lecheheb et al. 140). These
affectionate moments occur when the narrator is unconscious due to the intake of Infermiterol
and, while she is asleep, her subconscious takes the lead until she is awake: “On the seat beside
me was an enormous bouquet of white roses. A square envelope was tucked beneath it, my
handwriting on the front: “For Reva” […] I shoved the shopping bag down between my feet
and lay the bouquet across my lap. “To myself.” (118 & 121). Freud’s idea of psyche (the Id,
the Ego, and Super-Ego) is portrayed in this particular moment, alongside how the psyche
changes from one to another. As Kostopoulos explains, when we fall asleep, we gradually
“experience the diminution of consciousness”, but this diminution is counterbalanced by the
rapid shift changes in the dynamics of consciousness – REM and non-REM sleep stages –
perceiving different states of awareness during sleep (232). From being unconscious and buying
flowers for Reva in a state of love (subconscious), to being awake and refusing to show that
27
love due to not feeling it when being conscious: “Although deep down she knew she loved her,
she chose to alienate from this feeling. She repeatedly mentioned that she hated her but only
after attending her mother’s funeral, she admitted while half asleep that she actually loved her”
(Lecheheb et al. 140). The novel portrays the complexities of their relationship, and how both
characters grew in separate ways at the end; less dependent and understanding each other’s
struggles, emotions, intentions, and behaviors. According to Bernt, “Yet despite the narrator’s
disapproval of Reva, their equal sense of self-loathing and loneliness creates a form of
comraderie which maintains their relationship” (16); and the last chapter could symbolize
acceptance; the narrator accepting the love that she feels towards Reva and her persona.
Eight is the last chapter. Even though it is the shortest passage of the book (just one page), it
perfectly conveys the protagonist’s inner thoughts regarding her friend. This passage deals with
one of the most remembered moments in history; the terrorist attacks that happened in New
York City on September 11, 2001 – historically referred to as 9/11
12
. The morning of September
11, two commercial planes crashed into the Twin Towers (North Tower and South Tower),
provoking the collapse of both towers and the death of almost 3000 people. In the novel, Reva
was promoted in her job and was transferred to work in one of the Twin Towers. The
protagonist, when rewatching the tapes of the tragedy, her attention is drawn towards a specific
moment:
Each time I see the woman leap off the Seveny-eighth floor of the North Tower –
one high-heeled shoe slipping off and hovering up over her, the other stuck on her
foot as though it were too small, her blouse untucked, hair flailing, limbs stiff as
she plummets down, one arm raised, like a dive into a summer lake – I am overcome
by awe, not because she looks like Reva, and I think it’s her, almost exactly her,
and not because Reva and I had been friends, or because I’ll never see her again,
but because she is beautiful. There she is, a human being, diving into the unknown,
and she is wide awake. (Moshfegh 289)
What has been said about neoliberal and consumerist society is relevant here; it is also clear
that personal traumas intersect with collective traumas: the aftermath of 9/11 intersects with the
struggles to follow society’s expectations and other personal traumas. As mentioned before,
each individual in the novel struggles within neoliberal society with distinct ways of copying
12
Bergen, Peter L.. "September 11 attacks". Encyclopedia Britannica, 1 Mar. 2024,
https://www.britannica.com/event/September-11-attacks.
28
with it. Now such topic is silenced, and they only talk about it internally and not externally:
“Silence is the common denominator found among all victims, signifying a state of survival
functioning where words fail, and verbal recollections may have destroyed a fragile ego. Silence
in response to massive trauma constitutes also a self-protective, self-imposed firewall to avoid
total psychic fragmentation” (Ritter 180). My Year’s characters represent their personal trauma,
but they also represent other’s people struggles of living in their society, becoming a collective
trauma where each individual shares the same personal traumas in terms of society’s ideals.
The protagonist’s alienation and disconnection from the world reflects how other people are
also detached from their surroundings and other individuals, due to the surrealistic and
overwhelming demands placed on the society-established personal achievements. Reva acts
and functions as a symbol of society’s collective trauma while embodying the internalized
traumas of a consumerist-driven society: “The ability of literature to represent the fictional
neoliberal psyche at work has made it a potent and increasingly popular tool with which to
critique overwork culture” (Sykes 3), presenting how personal and collective traumas corelate
with each other and become part of their narratives.
Reva’s death could be interpreted in two ways: the vanishing past and the new life. Reva’s death
in the 9/11 marks the moment of a new self and recognition that serves as a rupture in the
emotional numbness that the narrator experiences, as she sees herself in Reva. This passage
defines the death of the protagonist’s old self and past, along with the birth of the new self and
new life: “I was soft and calm and felt things. This was good. This was my life now. I could
survive without the house. I understood that it would soon be someone else’s store of memories,
and that was beautiful. I could move on” (288). According to González and Baudrillard, Reva’s
death could also signify her “release from “the horror of living and working in sarcophagi of
concrete and steel” (Spirit 41) and the “institutional violence, both mental and physical, in
homeopathic doses” (Spirit 59) that she went through as neo-individual
13
” (66). The unnamed
narrator rejects the consumerist environment, seeking liberation from it; however, Reva is
submerged in it, believing it would bring her happiness, validation, stability, and satisfaction.
While the narrator can “reset” and begin again, just as she replays the footage “over
and over,” the video reveals Reva falling from the World Trade Center, her place
of work, implying the tragic consequences for those unable to develop “resilience.”
The narrator’s new life, then, while seemingly subversive, merely allows her to
13
neo- is a combining form that means: “new”, “recent”, “revived”, “modified”.
29
“bounce back,” “reset,” and adapt to the system to avoid the fate that Reva suffers.
Her self-transformation thus emphasizes the extreme privilege required to both
survive within and detox from the contemporary neoliberal workplace and exposes
the function of neoliberal feminism to perpetuate rather than challenge its toxic
overwork culture. (Sykes 9)
Despite Reva’s efforts to follow the ideals of a capitalism and consumerism, her death
symbolizes the fragility of living in such an environment, the fragility of the consumerist
dream. Living in a world dominated by these values, her death underscores the stupidity
and worthlessness of seeking meaning and fulfillment in a superficial existence, an
existence driven by modern society’s ideals, requirements, expectations, and where
“waged work transcends activities carried out for a wage to become the source of our
value as citizens and as humans” (Sykes 3).
7. Conclusion
The novel represents how each individual copes with their inner struggles, turmoil and
societal pressures in different ways, exploring what the meaning of life is and what it means to
be human. Trauma and a neo-liberal consumerist society have great influence on the psyche of
a person; the unnamed woman’s trauma and Reva’s struggle with society had affected their
view of the world and their personas, while leading to alienation. PTSD becomes part of a
person’s identity as it affects the psyche and daily life because the individual did not process
the trauma; such unprocessed trauma resurfaces by recurrent flashbacks, memories and dreams
of the past, shaping identity and “the Self”. The novel presents the consequences of trauma and
living in such a society, exploring the concept of evasion and alienation, and how the
unconscious mind works. In addition, the novel reflects how the protagonist’s situation
regarding her trauma, could be considered by the narrator an extreme trauma that leaded her to
take an extreme “solution”, which was sleeping for a whole year by using drugs (the influence
of the consumerist society) and avoiding her emotions and the world.
To conclude, from the beginning of the novel, the writing of every chapter has been filled with
small details of life, like the young woman observing Dr. Tuttle’s room, the most basic details
that you see in your daily life but are not aware of them. Or the most personal ones such as
“Reva’s sheets had flowers and butterflies on them. They were sad, old, pilly sheets”; or “I
drank the amoxicillin. I peed into the running toilet. The underwear I had on was white cotton
30
with an old brown bloodstain. It reminded me that I hadn’t menstruated in months” (133 &134).
The young woman’s perception has changed in how she visualizes her new life, and she
understands that there are different ways to approach life or go through it; not only that, but she
had also achieved her desire to move on from her past life as she processed her trauma. In
addition, she now appreciates the small details in life that usually go without notice, the simplest
things as feeling and observing nature, how the air smells, how the cold breeze feels on your
cheeks: “I breathed and walked and sat on a bench and watched a bee circle the heads of a flock
of passing teenagers. There was majesty and grace in the pace of the swaying branches of the
willows. There was kindness” (287-88). Throughout the novel, the protagonist has been tuned
with such aspects of life; the main difference is that before, it was perceived with a sense of
detachment. Now, she connects and feels the emotions that her surroundings transmit to her,
portraying her breakage from her past as she processed her trauma unconsciously and through
others, accepting life as it is and having a new perception of the world. As LaCapra would say,
she has “worked through” her trauma, accepting her present and her past without denial (195).
31
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