Abstract
Chad Hartigan’s science fiction romantic drama Little Fish was released in 2020, soon after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the disease plaguing communities in Little Fish is not affecting people’s bodies but their minds—those who have contracted Neuroinflammatory Affliction (NIA) are losing their memories. The story centres upon the experiences of one young couple as they anxiously witness the disease take hold of their community, loved ones, and eventually one another. The film explores relationships between memory and identity, and poses questions about the ways these processes interact with those of love and loss. Who are we once we begin to lose memories of our histories and ourselves? Who do we then become to our loved ones, with whom we have shared these memories and selves? What binds us together? The paper examines the film using concepts from memory studies, in particular psychoanalysis and philosophy, to argue that after conscious memory is gone, aspects of memory and identity remain through the body, the unconscious, and love.
Keywords
forgetting, identity, love, memory, narrative
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of Publication
8-1-2026
Article Number
104
E-ISSN
20760787
Volume
15
Issue
8
Publication Title
Humanities
Publisher
MDPI
School
School of Arts and Humanities
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Arthur, P. L., & Smith, I. (2026). What is left after memory: Love, the body, and the unconscious in Little Fish. Humanities, 15(8), 104. https://doi.org/10.3390/h15080104