BASIC CONCEPTS

— When novelists claim they do not invent it, but hear voices and find stories in their head, they are neither joking nor crazy.

— When characters, narrators, or muses have minds of their own and occasionally take over, they are alternate personalities.

— Alternate personalities and memory gaps, but no significant distress or dysfunction, is a normal version of multiple personality.

— normal Multiple Personality Trait (MPT) (core of Multiple Identity Literary Theory), not clinical Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)

— The normal version of multiple personality is an asset in fiction writing when some alternate personalities are storytellers.

— Multiple personality originates when imaginative children with normal brains have unassuaged trauma as victim or witness.

— Psychiatrists, whose standard mental status exam fails to ask about memory gaps, think they never see multiple personality.

— They need the clue of memory gaps, because alternate personalities don’t acknowledge their presence until their cover is blown.

— In novels, most multiple personality, per se, is unnoticed, unintentional, and reflects the author’s view of ordinary psychology.

— Multiple personality means one person who has more than one identity and memory bank, not psychosis or possession.

— Euphemisms for alternate personalities include parts, pseudonyms, alter egos, doubles, double consciousness, voice or voices.

— Multiple personality trait: 90% of fiction writers; possibly 30% of public.

— Each time you visit, search "name index" or "subject index," choose another name or subject, and search it.

— If you read only recent posts, you miss most of what this site has to offer.

— Share site with friends.

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Nobel Novelist Toni Morrison’s Puzzling Pseudonyms: Born Chloe Ardelia Wofford, wrongly reported as Chloe Anthony Wofford, plus four reasons for Toni

Author’s pseudonyms have been a recurrent subject in this blog, because a pseudonym may be the name of an alternate personality. And since Toni Morrison may have claimed two different birth names, and “Toni” is a pseudonym, her use of names is worth considering.

Toni Morrison’s birth name was Chloe Ardelia Wofford, so why do so many articles about her say that it was Chloe Anthony Wofford? She must have fostered this mistake or let it pass on many occasions. Are Chloe Ardelia and Chloe Anthony two different personalities?

And how did Chloe become Toni? There seem to be four explanations. First, people mispronounced Chloe as Toni. Second, at age 12, she chose the baptismal name of St. Anthony of Padua (the patron saint of finding lost things and people), and she got Toni from this name. Third, her middle name is Anthony (but this isn’t true). Fourth, one of her early manuscripts had the name Toni, and by the time she told the publisher to use Chloe, it was too late, so she became known as Toni. And I suppose these four explanations could be combined, with a little ingenuity.

Are Chloe, Toni, Ardelia, and Anthony different personalities? I don’t know. But as past posts indicate, multiple personality is common in her novels.
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