Daphne du Maurier’s Multiple Personality: Using the Pronoun “We” and Switching into Being Her Characters

The Multiple Personality “We”

If a person who is not using the royal or editorial “we” refers to herself as “we,” consider it a clue that she might have multiple personality. Daphne du Maurier’s editor (1943-1981) may or may not have thought of it in terms of multiple personality, per se, but she did realize that it had autobiographical significance.

“The most revealing passage in The Parasites  [1949] comes with the admission of the oldest of the three [siblings]…that she is always ‘being someone else’…This was true of Daphne herself…When she wrote severally about the three siblings, she referred to them in the third person, but when she wrote of them collectively, she used the pronoun ‘we’…It seemed to me so ingenious, as emphasising the autobiographical nature of the story, that I felt it would be a pity to suggest any change. Nor do I know whether the critics noticed it — so far as I am aware, not a single reviewer took up the point” (1, pp. 25-26).

Switching to an Alternate Personality

When children talk with their imaginary companions and novelists talk with their characters, one reason these things may not be recognized as multiple personality is that there is no switching from one personality to another. What people forget is that some children do switch—they become the super hero, princess, or whatever, for a period of time. And, likewise, some novelists become their characters temporarily; for example, see past posts about Charles Dickens, Philip Roth, and Georges Simenon.

Daphne du Maurier’s editor describes this as happening during research for The House on the Strand (1969). “This book has for me a very special insight into the way in which Daphne lived in and through her characters.” Daphne was going to visit the actual terrain where the action of the novel took place in order to get the geography right. And she invited the editor to accompany her on the hike. “It was a fascinating and revelatory experience, and one I shall never forget. Daphne became Dick [the character]; I ceased to exist for her” (1, p. 40).

1. Sheila Hodges. “Editing Daphne du Maurier,” pp. 25-43, in Helen Taylor (ed), The Daphne du Maurier Companion, Virago Press, 2007.