Sudden Self-Awareness Among Authors

In his book about Baudelaire, author and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre wrote:

“Each of us experienced the accidental and shocking moment of self-awareness in his youth.” ¹

I do not believe that ‘each of us’ experienced something like this in his youth, as Sartre alleged. I know too many people who cannot remember anything about a sudden flash of self-awareness to accept this idea. Whenever I ask adults if they remember something like this, among the many people who read or hear my question, only a few can offer a confirming and convincing answer. And, to the best of my knowledge, scientific literature does not contain any references to this unique ‘flash’ phenomenon. A young woman concluded the description of her memory as follows:

“In response to your book and my own memory, I have sometimes asked others whether they there familiar with such a moment. I found out that the world divides itself into two when asked such a question. Those who are familiar with it, and those who do not and have no clue what you are talking about.”

However, I owe a first description of childhood self-discovery in literature to Sartre. This description is offered by Richard Hughes in his novel A High Wind in Jamaica. <target id="page_10" target-type="page">10</target>Richard Hughes (1900–1976)

“And suddenly, something very important happened to Emily. She suddenly realized who she was. It is most likely complete happen-stance that this did not happen five years earlier, or five years later [when Emily is 10 years old DK], and it certainly happened without any reason that afternoon. She had been playing in a corner of the bow, next to the hinge, and was now walking aimlessly across the rear deck, having vague thoughts about bees and a fairy princess, when it suddenly flashed into her mind that she was she. Her movements froze, and she looked at herself, insofar as she was able to do so. She could not see much, except for the front of her skirt and her hands when she raised them to inspect them, but this was enough for her to get a general idea of the small body she suddenly realized was hers,… each idea was a short flash, quite innocent of words, her thoughts wandering sporadically, as she sometimes thought about nothing, followed by thoughts about the bees and the fairy princess. If you would add up the total of the moments of deliberate thought, you would maybe get to four or five seconds, spread out over the course of more than half an hour of nothing.” ²

Hughes was asked by the philosopher Herbert Spiegelberg whether his description of Emily was perhaps a childhood memory of himself. He answered that this was indeed the case. However, he had been younger than his 10-year-old Emily, aged 6 or 7 instead:

“Oddly enough, when I wrote the book, I remembered that it happened just as casually to me as to Emily, but at this moment [35 years later DK], I wonder whether the experience was not triggered by another incident, the nearly unbearable scene of a cat playing with a mouse which was still alive. I identified with the desperate, tortured mouse, and the discovery that I was not that mouse could have led me to the question who I actually was. Both incidents are linked to the same bit of garden path in my memories, but I remember them separately and have no proof that they occurred simultaneously.”

The fact that Emily’s experience made an impression is also clear from the fact that not only Sartre, but also Erich Fromm ³ and Simone de Beauvoir ⁴ used it in their reflections.