Harold Pinter, Nobel Prize playwright, says he often does not recognize himself when he looks in the mirror: a textbook sign of multiple personality.

From the Paris Review interview in Issue 39, 1966:

INTERVIEWER: Why wasn’t there a character representing you in the play?

PINTER: I had—I have—nothing to say about myself, directly. I wouldn’t know where to begin. Particularly since I often look at myself in the mirror and say, Who the hell’s that?

INTERVIEWER: And you don’t think being represented as a character on stage would help you find out?

PINTER: No.

The interviewer probably thought that Pinter was being evasive. And he was. But why? Why didn’t Pinter like to talk about himself?

Pinter explains that he has a problem with his own sense of identity, epitomized and illustrated by the fact that he often doesn’t recognize himself when he looks in the mirror.

Unfortunately, the interviewer didn’t know that such a thing is possible. He thought Pinter was just being difficult.

But the fact is that looking in the mirror and not recognizing yourself is a textbook sign of multiple personality. It happens in two ways. First, the regular “host” personality may look in the mirror and see the image of one of the alternate personalities. Second, an alternate personality (who has his own self-image) may look in the mirror and see the host personality.

To read how the multiple personality of other writers has been reflected in mirrors, search “mirror” and “mirrors” in this blog.