Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Wakefield: A multiple personality story in which a husband’s regular personality disappears, but returns after twenty years

The narrator says that he once read a story in some old magazine or newspaper about a married couple—the Wakefields—who lived in London. “The man, under pretence of going a journey, took lodgings in the next street to his own house, and there, unheard of by his wife or friends, and without the shadow of a reason for such self-banishment, dwelt upwards of twenty years,” at which point he returned home with no explanation. The narrator invites the reader to join him in imagining this scenario.

Since Mr. Wakefield is described as acting on impulse—his long disappearance is not premeditated—how did he support himself? He apparently had no job and did not draw on preexisting financial resources. After he buys a new wig and clothes that were not his usual fashion, “Wakefield is another man.”  Moreover, “Wakefield is spell-bound.”

My interpretation is that Wakefield had a switch between personalities, and that his alternate personality was in control, most of the time, for twenty years. If he actually did move out of his home, then the alternate personality, unknown to regular Wakefield, had arranged the finances. But it could be that Wakefield moved out only figuratively speaking. One day, suddenly, his wife may have found that her husband was no longer his regular self. But his regular self finally did return after twenty years.

Nathaniel Hawthorne. “Wakefield” [1835]. In Nathaniel Hawthorne: Selected Tales and Sketches. Third Edition with Introduction by Hyatt H. Waggoner. New York, Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1950/1970, pp. 164-173.