Self-discovery and Identity in Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library (2020): A Psychoanalytical Study

Abstract

In today’s world, filled with skepticism and emotional struggle, postmodern literature has become a reflective mirror of the chaos of the human life. This dissertation explores Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library (2020), a contemporary British novel that traces Nora Seed’s journey through many possible versions of her life. Haig, through his narrative, investigates the critical journey towards the exploration of the self. This piece of art captures the protagonist’s struggles to make sense of herself and existence in a world of endless choices. The objectives of this dissertation are to elucidate how the novel embodies the psychological needs through Self Determination Theory (SDT), focusing on Nora’s journey that seems to embody autonomy, competence, and relatedness. It explores how postmodern narrative techniques, such us fragmentation and intertextuality, support the illustration of identity as fragmented. Through a qualitative analytical approach, this study reveals how Nora Seed’s identity evolves in fragmented realities, paying attention to postmodern techniques and Self-Determination Theory. The findings demonstrate that The Midnight Library shows identity not as fixed but as a fluid and fragmented construct influenced by the fulfillment of intrinsic psychological needs. This work concludes that Self-Determination Theory and postmodern elements offer new perspectives of understanding the self