The Philosopher’s Pupil (post 3) by Iris Murdoch (post 5): Protagonist’s puzzling behavior and memory gap are clues he has multiple personality.

The novel begins with George’s attempt to kill his wife. Throughout the novel, he is erratic. Near the end, he murders his former philosophy professor. And finally, inexplicably, he settles down.

In short, this novel is the story of George’s puzzling behavior, which neither the narrator nor George’s family nor anyone else can explain.

For most of the novel, the reader is led to believe that sometime in the past George had probably killed his young son. But, eventually, a discussion between George and his wife, Stella, reveals that their son had probably died due to an accident or negligence involving Stella, not George; that, in fact, George has always protected Stella’s reputation by letting everyone jump to the conclusion that George had been to blame.

For most of the novel, the philosopher is depicted as a Great Man, while George’s hate for him looks entirely crazy and paranoid. But George is not prosecuted for drowning the philosopher in his sleep, because the philosopher has left a suicide note, and had taken an overdose, over his sexual obsession with his seventeen-year-old granddaughter.

Nevertheless, whatever the failings of his wife and the philosopher, George’s behavior has been puzzling. And at the end of the novel, George’s puzzling behavior remains unexplained. But there are clues throughout the novel that George’s puzzling behavior is due to multiple personality.

Clues

“How could I have done that [attempted to kill his wife], he thought, looking down. As on similar occasions in the past, he felt a cleavage between himself and the George who did things” (1, p. 14).

“George was…an expert and dedicated liver of the double life…” (1, p. 73).

“He had seen his own double in the Botanic Gardens…Twice now he had seen this double, capable of anything, walking about and at large” (1, p. 137).

“Sometime I feel like I lose the present moment…my sense of my individuality goes, I can’t feel my present being” (1, p. 144).

“There was in George something that was not himself…” (1, p. 180).

“…there was another man…George realised with a coldness which made him almost faint that this other man was himself…” (1, p. 219).

“George…saw himself in…the mirror. He thought, that’s the man I was following” (1, p. 221).

“George was wearing a black mackintosh, like his alter ego” (1, p. 225).

“George had taken off his black mackintosh…Alex [his mother] thought, he’s different, he’s the same yet different” (1, p. 243).

“Once I saw Uncle George being in two places at the same time” (1, p. 293).

“You can’t explain George by the old theories. You might just as well say he’s possessed by a devil” (1, p. 370).

“That awful giddiness was coming upon him, that physically-announced loss of identity, a most intense sense of his body, of its bulky heavy solidity and of his various views of it, combined with the absolute disappearance of its inhabitant” (1, p. 398).

“ ‘George, let me ask you…whether you did or did not try to kill Stella that night…’ He [George] said, ‘I’m not sure, I can’t remember’ " (1, p. 498).

“I saw my double carrying a hammer. How can another person steal one’s consciousness, how is it possible?” (1, p. 511).

[In spite of everything that has happened in this novel] “…half the women in this town are in love with George” (1, pp. 530-31) [which is not the attitude you would expect toward a man who was truly psychotic].

“George’s hysterical blindness [a dissociative symptom: multiple personality is classified as one of the dissociative disorders] left him after about a fortnight” (1, p. 559).

“Stella…remains puzzled about her husband” (1, p. 563).

Comment

As previously discussed in this blog, the two cardinal clues to the possibility that a person has multiple personality are memory gaps (like George’s inability to recall whether he had actually tried to kill Stella) and a puzzling inconsistency (due to the comings and goings, incognito, of the person’s alternate personalities). Another clue to multiple personality is seemingly psychotic symptoms in a person whose overall behavior and functioning suggest that he is not really psychotic (multiple personality is not categorized as a psychosis and is unrelated to schizophrenia).

George is not the only character in this novel who has multiple personality symptoms such as those quoted above, but his symptoms are more noticeable and more extensively described. As another character says, “George is like everyone else, only in his case it shows” (1, p. 40).

This novel’s view of people—in effect, that most people have multiple personality, but it usually does not show—is an overgeneralization that is probably based on the author’s experience of her own psychology and the psychology of various people she has known.

1. Iris Murdoch. The Philosopher’s Pupil. New York, The Viking Press, 1983.

Frank Richards, one of 25 pseudonyms of Charles Hamilton, puts Joyce Carol Oates to shame: He was much more prolific, the most prolific author in history.

“Charles Harold St. John Hamilton (8 August 1876 – 24 December 1961) was an English writer, specializing in writing long-running series of stories for weekly magazines about recurrent casts of characters, his most frequent and famous genre being boys' public school stories, though he also dealt with other genres. He used a variety of pen-names [twenty-five, according to tomorrow’s New York Times Book Review], generally using a different name for each set of characters he wrote about, the most famous being Frank Richards for the Greyfriars School stories (featuring Billy Bunter)…It has been estimated by researchers Lofts and Adley that Hamilton wrote around 100 million words or the equivalent of 1,200 average length novels, making him the most prolific author in history” (Wikipedia).

Hamilton’s autobiography is titled “The Autobiography of Frank Richards,” as though Frank Richards were a person in his own right.

Pseudonyms have been a recurrent topic in this blog, because alternate personalities often have their own names.

Postscript: My title would have been more correct to say that Charles Hamilton (not Frank Richards) is the most prolific author in history. I guess I was thinking about the fact that the only autobiography written by Hamilton, judging by the title, was by and about Frank Richards, as though Richards, not Hamilton, were the person's regular, host personality.

Postpostscript: Was his Charles Hamilton personality a writer? If so, was he not the kind of writer who would write an autobiography?

Literary “Madness,” a Misnomer: Henry James, The Madwoman in the Attic, and others use words suggesting schizophrenia, but describe multiple personality.

When Henry James’s character speaks of the “madness” of art; when Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar speak of the “madwoman” in the attic; and when an author’s blog post asks if fiction writers are certifiably “insane,” to what condition are they referring?

Henry James’s “madness of art”

As noted in a previous post, the character who uses that phrase refers to himself with the plural pronouns “we” and “our,” inadvertently implying multiple personality. (Also search past posts on James’s “Ambassadors” and “Private Life” for other examples of his unacknowledged descriptions of multiple personality.)

Quoting from James’s short story, “The Middle Years”:

"You're a great success!" said Doctor Hugh, putting into his young voice the ring of a marriage-bell.

Dencombe lay taking this in; then he gathered strength to speak once more. "A second chance—THAT’S the delusion. There never was to be but one. We work in the dark—we do what we can—we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art."

"If you've doubted, if you've despaired, you've always 'done' it," his visitor subtly argued.

"We've done something or other," Dencombe conceded.

Thus, if you consider the “we” and “our” in the famous part of the passage only, you might think that the novelist is referring to writers in general, but what comes after—“We’ve done something or other”—shows that he is referring to himself only, and that he experiences himself as plural.

The Madwoman in the Attic

If you look in this book’s index under “Madwomen,” it says “See Doubles,” which, of course, is the literary metaphor for multiple personality. As I noted in a past post on The Madwoman in the Attic:

Gilbert & Gubar’s index does not include multiple personality, per se, but it does include Doubles, Duplicity, Fragmentation of personality, Mirrors, and pseudonyms, all of which have prominent roles in this blog. As they say in Part I. Toward a Feminist Poetics:

“We shall see, then, that the mad double is as crucial to the aggressively sane novels of Jane Austen and George Eliot as she is in the more obviously rebellious stories told by Charlotte and Emily Bronte. Both gothic and anti-gothic writers represent themselves as split like Emily Dickinson between the elected nun and damned witch, or like Mary Shelley between the noble, censorious scientist and his enraged, childish monster. In fact, so important is this female schizophrenia [multiple personality] of authorship that, as we hope to show, it links these nineteenth-century writers with such twentieth-century descendants as Virginia Woolf (who projects both ladylike Mrs. Dalloway and crazed Septimus Warren Smith), Doris Lessing (who divides herself between sane Martha Hesse and mad Lynda Coldridge), and Sylvia Plath (who sees herself as both a plaster saint and a dangerous ‘old yellow’ monster).”

"Are fiction writers certifiably insane?"

That is the title of a post from the blog of a fiction writer that I just chanced upon:

https://jennykellerford.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/are-fiction-writers-certifiably-insane/

She is describing aspects of what I call “normal multiple personality” (and not any psychosis like schizophrenia).

Conclusion

Many writers use vague, meaningless terms like “madness” when they don’t realize they are describing one or another form of multiple personality:  either multiple personality disorder (a mental illness, but one that is quite different from schizophrenia) or its normal version, what I call “normal multiple personality,” the subject of this blog.

Zoë Heller and Francine Prose take William Faulkner’s “The writer’s only responsibility is to his art” out of context: his “demons” (alternate personalities).

In their recent New York Times Book Review essays (1), Heller and Prose disregard the reason that Faulkner was ruthlessly dedicated to his writing. He experienced himself as being possessed by alternate personalities (“demons”) over whom he had no control (they chose him), and he was in anguish until he told their story:

Faulkner said, “…An artist is a creature driven by demons. He don’t know why they choose him and he’s usually too busy to wonder why…The writer’s only responsibility is to his art…He has a dream. It anguishes him so much he must get rid of it. He has no peace until then…” (2).

1. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/books/review/is-the-writers-only-responsibility-to-his-art.html?ref=books

2. Paris Review, Spring 1956, No. 12 http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4954/the-art-of-fiction-no-12-william-faulkner

The Philosopher’s Pupil (post 2) by Iris Murdoch (post 4): Both Kirkus Reviews and NY Times quoted “justified sinner” passage, but missed multiple personality.

Times: “But the narrator warns us early that people ‘are in fact more randomly made, more full of rough contingent rubble, than art or vulgar psychoanalysis leads us to imagine’ “ (1).

Kirkus: “George, Rozanov’s former irritating pupil, hounds Olympus for salvation as a ‘justified sinner’ " (2)

Both reviews quoted from the same passage that I did in yesterday’s post, so the passage was, evidently, noticed and memorable. But neither review understood the reference to James Hogg’s The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner and multiple personality.

1. Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, Books of the Times, The Philosopher’s Pupil, June 29, 1983: http://www.nytimes.com/1983/06/29/books/books-of-the-times-books-of-the-times.html

2. Kirkus Reviews The Philosopher’s Pupil 1983: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/iris-murdoch-2/the-philosophers-pupil/

“The Philosopher’s Pupil” (post 1) by Iris Murdoch (post 3): Protagonist is called “justified sinner,” title of James Hogg’s novel of murder by alternate personality.

At the beginning of Iris Murdoch’s novel, the protagonist, George, who already has a reputation for violent episodes, now tries to kill his wife by pushing her car over a cliff:

“How could I have done that, he thought, looking down. As on similar occasions in the past, he felt a cleavage between himself and the George who did things…” (1, p. 14).

The narrator says, “I confess that I cannot offer any illuminating explanation [of George]…We are in fact more randomly made…than art or vulgar psycho-analysis leads us to imagine…George McCaffrey was deeply affected by his teacher [of philosophy, Rozanov]…how absolutely this man had taken possession of his soul…Why was [Rozanov] coming back to [town]? Was it for him, the lost sheep, the one just man, the justified sinner?" (1, pp. 76-79).

James Hogg’s “Justified Sinner”

“The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner is a novel by the Scottish author James Hogg, published anonymously in 1824…

“The confession traces Robert's gradual decline into despair and madness, as his doubts about the righteousness of his cause are counteracted by Gil-Martin’s increasing domination over his life. Finally, Robert loses control over his own identity and even loses track of time. During these lost weeks and months, it is suggested that Gil-Martin assumes Robert’s appearance in order to commit further crimes. However, there are also suggestions in the text, that 'Gil-Martin' is a figment of Robert's imagination, and is simply an aspect of his own personality: as, for example when 'the sinner' writes, 'I feel as if I were the same person' (as Gil-Martin)…

“The novel has been cited as an inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde…” (2).

1. Iris Murdoch. The Philosopher’s Pupil. New York, Viking, 1983.

2. Wikipedia.

Autism—like multiple personality and child abuse—was considered extremely rare, but is now known to be relatively common, including brilliant people.

One of the most ignorant arguments against the validity of multiple personality is that it went from being thought extremely rare to being found relatively common, which, supposedly, is impossible.

Child abuse—which, before 1970, was thought to affect only one child in a million, but is now known to affect upwards of one child in a hundred—is one thing that disproves that argument; autism is another.

Reviewed in today’s Wall Street Journal by Richard J. McNally, “In a Different Key: The Story of Autism” by John Donvan and Caren Zucker, “tells a riveting tale about how a seemingly rare childhood disorder became a salient fixture in our cultural landscape…

“The prevalence of autism has risen markedly in recent years, climbing from a rate of 4 to 5 cases per 10,000 people in 1966 to approximately 1 per 100 ‘on the spectrum’ today…

“Early work on autism concerned markedly impaired children, most of whom had severe intellectual disabilities…But high-functioning people…led to the rediscovery of work by the Austrian pediatrician Hans Asperger, who in 1944 had described youngsters with autistic traits whose intelligence was normal or superior. Some exhibited brilliance…”

Autism and multiple personality are unrelated, except that both went from being thought extremely rare and always dysfunctional to being found relatively common and often advantageous.

Since you cannot believe that multiple personality really exists, what is the use of reading the blog, Normal Novelists have-use-enjoy Multiple Personality?

If you, yourself, have never discovered unmistakable multiple personality in a person who, previously, had not even been suspected of having it, then you cannot really believe that multiple personality exists.

I know this about you, because that is the way I was before I, myself, discovered blatant multiple personality in people who had never been suspected of having it.

Fortunately, the more of this blog you read, the more you will come to understand what multiple personality looks like in the real world, with real people who have it, but who have never been suspected of having it.

And with this knowledge, you, yourself, will eventually discover it in someone. At first, it will amaze you, so that you will not entirely believe your own eyes, until at least the third time you find it. That was my experience.

Socrates (post 2), who heard voices and had puzzling contradictions (typical of multiple personality), had a “midwife” alternate personality

As previously discussed, Socrates, even though he was not psychotic, heard voices, and had heard them since childhood (multiple personality starts in childhood, is not a psychosis, and the person may hear the voices of his alternate personalities).

One of the main clues that a person might have multiple personality is puzzling contradictions, caused by the inconsistent and contradictory behavior of incognito, alternate personalities.

Puzzling Contradictions

“In Aristophanes’ Clouds we encounter a clear description of Socrates that unveils the complexity of his personality: ‘A bold rascal, a fine speaker, impudent, shameless, a braggart, and adept at stringing lies…a fox to slip through any hole…slippery as an eel, an artful fellow, a blusterer, a villain, a knave with one hundred faces’…”(1, p. 17). The playwright, a contemporary of Socrates, knew him.

“Any trait associated with [Socrates], any idea attributed to him, can be contradicted by adducing passages from various sources…The main primary sources, namely Aristophanes, Xenophon, and Plato, do not create one consistent portrayal…(1, pp. 18-19)…it may perhaps be more reasonable to assume that all the sources disclose genuine components of the complex and multifaceted presence of Socrates…(1, p. 91)…”He is literally a bundle of contradictions and byways” (1, p. 209).

“Midwife” Personality

In Plato’s Theaetetus, Socrates (whose mother was a midwife) says:

“ ‘My art of midwifery is in general like that of midwives. The only difference is that my patients are men, not women. My concern is not with the body but with the soul that is in labor. The highest point of my art is the power to prove by every test whether the offspring of a young man’s thought is a false phantom or is something alive and real. I am so much like the midwife that I cannot myself give birth to wisdom. The common reproach is true, that although I question others, I can myself bring nothing to light because there is no wisdom in me. This is because God constrains me to serve as a midwife, but has debarred me from giving birth.’ "(1, p. 222).

“ ‘The most exquisite thing about my art [Socrates says in Euthyphro] is that I am clever against my will.’ It is not Socrates who asks the questions. It is not he who refutes the definitions of his interlocutors…If not Socrates, however, who or what is at work [when he has a Socratic dialogue with someone]?

“All sorts of answers…have been proposed to this, one of the most perplexing aspects of the Socratic phenomenon. As much as with attempts to explain Socrates' divine voice or sign, here, too, all answers appear to fall short…Some of the early Fathers of the Church maintained that he was literally possessed by a demon because that is how possessed people speak and act. Others have suspected a psychopathological problem…

“Thus, with respect to Socrates’ claim that [his Socratic questioning] is not his doing but is something that somehow is done to him, there is…no…explanation…[Incidentally,] He even complains at times of his defective memory [multiple personality memory gaps?]: ‘I am a forgetful sort of man…and if someone speaks at length, I lose the thread of the argument’ ” (1, pp. 207-208).

The explanation is probably multiple personality. The one who engaged in Socratic dialogues was his “midwife” personality.

1. Luis E. Navia. Socrates: A Life Examined. Amherst, New York, Prometheus Books, 2007.

Why are aspiring fiction writers cautioned to maintain a consistent point of view? What would cause anyone to write with an inconsistent point of view?

If people who did not have multiple personality were to try to write novels, they would not have any problem in maintaining a consistent point of view. Since they have only one personality, they have only one point of view. All narration and every character's thoughts come from that same, single source.

In contrast, aspiring novelists who have multiple personality will have two ways to make the mistake of an inconsistent point of view.

First, first-person speakers, if aware that they have alternate personalities, may inadvertently reveal that awareness by slipping from “I” to “we.”

Second, the characters, who, like alternate personalities, have minds of their own—their own, independent, points of view—may get away from the writer personality, and insist on expressing their own points of view, even when it is inconsistent to do so. As Toni Morrison said, you have to control your characters and remind them whose novel it is.

Author Lee Child switches among three personal pronouns—“I” “it” “we”—in the review he wrote for January 17, 2016 New York Times Book Review.

Since I have several past posts about Lee Child and two of his novels, I was interested to read his review of “Hunters in the Dark” by Lawrence Osborne: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/books/review/hunters-in-the-dark-by-lawrence-osborne.html?_r=0

Using the above link, you can judge for yourself whether his use of personal pronouns is perfectly ordinary or is consistent with the normal version of multiple personality that is common among novelists.

The first sentence of the review begins: “I read this book…”

The third sentence says: “…the pedant in me reared its caviling head…”

The first sentence of the second paragraph says: “…we can acknowledge…”

Who is “we”? Does it refer to “I” and “the pedant”? Or does “we” refer to we readers? The use of “we” toward the end of the review could easily be interpreted as referring only to we readers.

Yet, it is a rule of good writing to maintain a consistent point of view in a circumscribed piece like a single chapter in a novel or a book review. And when the book review starts from the perspective of “I,” it is a little unsettling to have it switch back and forth between “I” and “we,” plus “it” on one occasion.

If I had not read the Lee Child biography and two novels, I might not have noticed his use of pronouns in this book review. If you have not read my previous posts, you may feel I am making something out of nothing.

Elizabeth Strout, Narrative Voice, Character Creation: Narrative voices are the private views of authors, since most authors have multiple personality.

The following quotes are from today’s New York Times article by Sarah Lyall about Elizabeth Strout, her new novel, “My Name is Lucy Barton,” and how she lets her narrator and characters be themselves: 

“It’s not my job,” Sarah [a character who is a novelist] says sharply, “to make readers know what’s a narrative voice and not the private view of the author.”

“In an interview last week, Ms. Strout said…her characters…come to life…through some mysterious process that even she finds difficult to explain…”

“I’m sure my issues, or whatever they are, get worked out in my writing, but that just doesn’t interest me,” Ms. Strout said.

Comment

Narrative voice, character voice, and author’s regular voice are all equally genuine voices of one and the same person, who does not mechanically construct any of them.

They all come to life, mysteriously, from the mind of the same person—a person who may not be very self-analytical, because in multiple personality, most personalities tend to mind their own business.

New York Times review of Maria Konnikova’s Confidence Game fails to mention Herman Melville’s Confidence-Man and Thomas Mann’s Confidence Man

Today’s book review by Jennifer Senior fails to mention those two novels. This reflects a deficiency in the book under review, which cites Melville’s novel only in passing and does not even mention Mann’s Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man, both of which are discussed in this blog.

The aspect of the confidence game that these novels highlight is the confidence that the con man must have in his game: When the identity of the con man is a prime issue in the con, nothing can make the con man more convincing than his having an alternate personality who honestly believes that the false identity is true.

Psychologist studies relatively common “strange-face-in-the-mirror illusion,” but makes no reference to its being a known phenomenon of multiple personality.

In this interesting little study, fifty people were asked to gaze at a mirror for ten minutes. Twenty-eight percent saw an unknown person:

“I describe a visual illusion which occurs when an observer sees his/her image reflected in a mirror in a dimly lit room. This illusion can be easily experienced and replicated as the details of the setting (in particular the room illumination) are not critical…

“Phenomenological descriptions were made by fifty naive individuals (age range 21— 29 years; mean 23 years; SD 2.1 years). At the end of a 10 min session of mirror gazing, the participant was asked to write what he or she saw in the mirror. The descriptions differed greatly across individuals and included: (a) huge deformations of one's own face (reported by 66% of the fifty participants); (b) a parent's face with traits changed (18%), of whom 8% were still alive and 10% were deceased; (c) an unknown person (28%); (d) an archetypal face, such as that of an old woman, a child, or a portrait of an ancestor (28%); (e) an animal face such as that of a cat, pig, or lion (18%); (f) fantastical and monstrous beings (48%)…

“The participants reported that apparition of new faces in the mirror caused sensations of otherness when the new face appeared to be that of another, unknown person or strange ‘other’ looking at him/her from within or beyond the mirror. All fifty participants experienced some form of this dissociative identity effect…” (1).

Even though the above ends by calling it a “dissociative identity effect,” the author makes no reference to dissociative identity (multiple personality) per se, and apparently did not know that this is a known phenomenon of multiple personality:

“MPD [multiple personality disorder] patients often report seeing themselves as different people when they look into a mirror. They may see themselves as having hair, eyes, or skin of a different color, or as being of the opposite sex. In some instances, these alterations of perception of self are so disturbing that the individuals may phobically avoid mirrors. They may describe seeing themselves sequentially change into several different people while looking into a mirror…” (2, p. 62).

Search “mirror” or “mirrors” in this blog for previous discussions of mirrors in novels and multiple personality.

1. Giovanni B. Caputo. Strange-face-in-the-mirror illusion. Perception, 2010, volume 39, pages 1007-1008. http://www.noeton.org/Caputo-research.pdf

2. Frank W. Putnam MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. New York, The Guilford Press, 1989.

Katherine Paterson: Award-winning author of children’s literature writes to comfort and change her “frightened, lonely, nine-year-old” alternate personality.

“With every book I have written there is a reader whose life I have been determined to change…there is an audience from the very beginning…that reader is myself…

“But why children? If I am, in fact, writing to change myself, a forty-six-year-old woman, why don’t I have the decency to publish for other forty-six-year-old women and leave the innocent children out of it?

“…Let me explain. When I walk into a room full of well-dressed people, I never walk in alone. With me is a nine-year-old who knows her clothes are out of a missionary barrel, her accent is foreign, and her mannerisms peculiar—a child who knows that if she is lucky she will be ignored and if unlucky she will be sneered at…I can [never] excise that frightened, lonely nine-year-old or [do I] even want to…

“The reader I want to change is that burdened child within myself. As I begin a book, I am in a way inviting her along to see if there might be some path through this wilderness that we might hack out together…some sheltered spot where we might lay our burden down…” (1, pp. 55-60).

Paterson knows, objectively, that the child is a product of her own mind, but, subjectively, she experiences the child as different from her regular, adult self and not just a metaphor.

She and the child are not how she feels in different circumstances or moods. Rather, she and the child are often present and conscious at the same time; for example, while she’s writing and the child is her audience, or when she and the child walk, together, into a crowded room. This is an example of “double consciousness,” an old term for multiple personality, discussed in past posts.

The nine-year-old child is an “alternate personality,” but the word “alternate” is somewhat misleading, because, in multiple personality, more than one personality is usually conscious and present at any given time. The personalities “alternate” in the sense that only one is “out” and predominantly in control of behavior at any given time. But another personality is usually present and monitoring the situation from behind the scenes.

Some personalities are not co-conscious (are not aware of each other), but other personalities are co-conscious, as are Paterson and her child-aged personality.

Since multiple personality begins in childhood, child-aged personalities are common.

1. Katherine Paterson. A Sense of Wonder: On Reading and Writing Books for Children. New York, Plume/Penguin, 1981-1995.

Psychology of Nameless Narrators and Protagonists: It is common sense to ask in what psychological condition nameless personalities are normally found.

The only psychological condition with nameless narrators is multiple personality. (Note: Most people with multiple personality are not mentally ill. For every person with the mental illness, there are probably thirty people with a normal version, which is the subject of this blog.)

In multiple personality, although only one personality (usually the “host” personality) is out and in overt control at any given time, it is common for one or more of the alternate personalities (“alters”) to be paying attention from behind-the-scenes—and to sometimes make comments, which the host personality hears as a “voice” or “loud thought” in his head.

If the alter is talkative and has a story to tell, he is a narrator, and may be his story’s protagonist as well.

Nameless Personalities

Like most characters in novels, many alternate personalities (alters) have ordinary names. But like some characters, some personalities do not.

“Alter personalities may also be named by the…function they perform (e.g., ‘the driver,’ ‘the maid,’ ‘the cook’…). Or they may be named for the affect that they manifest (e.g., ‘the angry one,’ ‘the sad one,’ ‘the scared one,’ etc…

“Many personality systems will have one or more ‘unnamed’ personalities…” (1, pp. 116-117). Often it is found that alters who are initially thought to be nameless, actually do have names, but “Many alters are unwilling to reveal their names” (1, p. 117), because if you know their names, it gives you a certain degree of power over them, such as the ability to call them out.

In Roxana by Daniel Defoe (see recent posts), the protagonist appeared to be nameless, but eventually it was discovered that her name (or, at least, the name of one of her personalities) was “Susan.”

1. Frank W. Putnam MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. New York, The Guilford Press, 1989.

Oxford University Press bungles title and cover illustration of Roxana (post 6) by Daniel Defoe (post 7): Protagonist is not “Roxana,” and her face is not “painted”

The Oxford University Press edition is highly commendable. It uses the original 1724 text, not the many later, unauthorized revisions. And it has an excellent Introduction and Textual History.

However, it disregards the novel’s text in its use of the unauthorized, revised title, “Roxana” instead of the original title, “The Fortunate Mistress.” And its cover illustration, the portrait of a woman who is obviously wearing makeup, is also at odds with the text.

When Daniel Defoe published his novel with the title, “The Fortunate Mistress,” he knew what he was doing. His protagonist is an extremely fortunate mistress, and remains fortunate until the very last paragraph, which appears tacked on to appease moral censors.

As the Introduction and text make clear, “Roxana” is not the protagonist’s name, but only a nickname for whore, which, on one occasion, was called out by men watching her do an exotic dance. If the publisher wanted to retain that name in the title, because that is the title by which the novel is best known, the least they should have done was to make it “The Roxana,” meaning The Whore. But the novel is not really about being a whore, but about a woman who was very fortunate in her career as a mistress.

Moreover, the title Roxana, especially if you skip the Introduction, misleads the reader into thinking that the protagonist uses that name, or any name at all. And if you don’t realize that the protagonist does not use any name, you miss the salient feature of this novel that distinguishes it from most others.

As to the cover illustration: It is a running joke in this novel that the protagonist is so beautiful that she does not need to “paint” (use makeup). Time and again, she declares to her clients that she does not paint, and gives them a glass of hot water and a cloth with which to rub her cheek as hard as they wish, to prove that her perfect complexion is not due to any makeup. They are amazed.

Daniel Defoe. Roxana. Oxford University Press, 1724/2008.

Why the nameless protagonist of Roxana (post 5) by Daniel Defoe (post 6) does not want to meet her abandoned daughter: shame or multiple personality?

The nameless protagonist—her secret, real name, is Susan; her nickname as a whore, is Roxana—gives a bogus reason for not wanting to meet the daughter she abandoned many years ago.

Her bogus reason is that she is now retired from her life as a whore (her word); she has just married a man who knows nothing about her past; and she fears that her daughter would expose her. Moreover, she wants to shield her daughter from the shame of knowing that her mother was a whore. So now that she is rich, she wants to provide financial support to her daughter as an anonymous benefactor.

However, there is little or nothing in the text to indicate that the daughter—also named Susan—either wants to expose, or would be ashamed of, her mother. From the daughter’s words and behavior, it appears that her motivation for trying to find and meet her mother is purely emotional: She longs to have a mother, and to be loved and recognized by her mother.

So what is the real reason that Nameless fears meeting her daughter? I call the protagonist “Nameless,” because Roxana is not her real name, Susan is, but she never uses her real name. Literary analysis of Roxana must explain its most salient fact: the protagonist is nameless.

One possible explanation is that Nameless has multiple personality. She does not use the name Susan, because that is the name of a personality who has not been in control for many years. Susan may be a depressed, victimized personality, who was last in control at the time her first husband abandoned her and their five young children to dire poverty. The real risk to Nameless of meeting her daughter is that such a meeting could bring out that depressed, victimized personality.

The unnamed personalities who made her rich and happily married want to remain in control. However, that depressed personality, Susan, is always behind-the-scenes and trying to come out. And the presence of the daughter—also named Susan, who was last in her life when the depressed personality was in control, and, especially, would address her by the name Susan—might shift the balance of power in favor of the depressed personality and enable the latter to come out and take over.

If you have a better explanation for both why the protagonist is nameless and why she does not want to see her daughter, please submit your comment.

Alternate Personality Narrates: Literary criticism knows, but cannot explain, that the first-person narrator in Roxana (post 4) by Daniel Defoe (post 5) is Susan.

“…As a matter of fact, the narrator[’s real name is] not ‘Roxana’ but ‘Susan’. We discover this, in passing, late in the book…The keeping hidden of her original name (and of her married names) will not, in itself, surprise any reader familiar with Defoe’s fiction. All the narrators of his novels change or conceal their names…In none of Defoe’s other novels, however, is the imposition of a new name as perturbing as it is in Roxana…

“The woman…often finds it useful, and more comfortable, to be ‘Incognito’…(1, p. xvi-xvii).

It is not merely “perturbing.” It is bizarre, and requires an explanation, why Susan doesn’t use her real name, and why the reader learns her real name only late in the novel, and then only when it is mentioned in passing. Is it that she knows her real name, but doesn’t identify with it, because she sees herself as a different person? Who is this first-person narrator, psychologically speaking?

The above reminds me of a past post on Dostoevsky’s The Double:

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Post #3 on Dostoevsky’s The Double; Post #2 quoting Mikhail Bakhtin

“But who tells the story in The Double?…one gets the impression that the narration is dialogically addressed to Golyadkin himself, it rings in Golyadkin’s own ears as another’s voice taunting him, as the voice of his double, although formally the narration is addressed to the reader.” 

As I previously said, the story is not really about Golyadkin’s downfall. It is about the double’s triumph. “History is written by the victors.” The double—the alternate personality—tells the story.

Perhaps Roxana is narrated by Susan’s alternate personality.

1. Daniel Defoe. Roxana [1724]. Introduction by John Mullan. Oxford University Press, 2008.

Nameless, incognito protagonist in Roxana (post 3) by Daniel Defoe (post 4): An illustration of the typical secrecy of alternate personalities in multiple personality.

“We call the novel by a name that Defoe did not give to it. Roxana was first recorded as the title of the book in an edition published in 1742, eleven years after its author’s death” (1, p. 332), eighteen years after it was first published in 1724. Its original title was The Fortunate Mistress.

The preface does not name the protagonist, and it will turn out that “Roxana” is a nickname she picks up along the way. She keeps her real name secret for most of the novel. I wonder if the character had kept her name secret from Defoe, too.

One of the reasons that multiple personality usually remains hidden and undiagnosed is that alternate personalities like it that way, and prefer to remain incognito. I discussed this in a past post about “Rumpelstiltskin”:

Monday, May 5, 2014

The Brothers Grimm tale "Rumpelstiltskin," an Allegory of the Secret, Incognito, Alternate Personality in Multiple Personality

In a previous post about Edgar Allan Poe, I discussed that in real life Poe had an alternate personality named “Nobody,” which is the kind of name sometimes used by alternate personalities to remain secret and unidentified. I noted that it was the same kind of naming trick used by Odysseus to fool the Cyclops in Homer’s Odyssey, suggesting that Homer knew things about multiple personality.

Poe and the Odyssey illustrate that, in multiple personality, alternate personalities like to carry on their lives, and go about their business, incognito. Indeed, to understand multiple personality, you have understand that it is, by nature, hidden and secretive.

In the Brothers Grimm tale “Rumpelstiltskin” (1812), a young woman must spin straw into gold or be killed. A magical imp, Rumpelstiltskin, gets the straw spinned into gold for her, but to pay him, she will have to sacrifice her first-born, unless she can guess or discover his name.

So this is a story about a secret person, who acts behind the scenes, and who maintains his personal power relative to a regular, well-known person by keeping his identity and name secret.

The tale is an allegory of multiple personality, in which the young woman represents the regular or host personality, while Rumpelstiltskin represents the hidden, behind-the-scenes alternate personality.

In multiple personality, the host personality often knows little or nothing about the alternate personalities. And the alternate personalities are often particularly reluctant to divulge their names.

I can’t be more specific now in regard to this novel, because I haven’t finished reading it. All I can say is that a novel with a nameless and incognito protagonist is probably a multiple personality scenario.

1. Daniel Defoe. Roxana [1724]. Oxford University Press, 2008.

Nameless characters: The silly explanation in the Preface of Roxana (post 2) by Daniel Defoe (post 3) for why most of the characters are nameless.

from The Preface

“The Scene is laid so near the Place where the Main Part of it was transacted, that it was necessary to conceal Names and Persons; lest what cannot be yet entirely forgot in that Part of the Town, shou’d be remember’d, and the Facts trac’d back too plainly, by the many People yet living, who wou’d know the Persons by the Particulars.

“It is not always necessary that the Names of Persons shou’d be discover’d, tho’ the History may be many Ways useful; and if we shou’d be always oblig’d to name the Persons, or not to relate the Story, the Consequence might be only this, That many a pleasant and delightful History wou’d be Buried in the Dark, and the World be depriv’d both of the Pleasure and the Profit of it.”

Now, obviously, since good pseudonyms do not make people more identifiable, the preface’s explanation for why most of the novel’s characters are nameless is pure nonsense.

To understand the more probable explanation for the novel’s nameless characters, you need to know about naming in novels, and names in multiple personality.

Naming in Novels

In past posts, I have quoted some novelists as saying that their characters come to them already having names. These novelists consider it their job to tell the truth about their characters, and so, if a character came to them nameless, then to put a name on that character would be a lie, and the novelist would not want to do it.

I infer that most of Defoe’s characters in this novel came to him without names, and he did not want to lie about them.

Names in Multiple Personality

In multiple personality, some alternate personalities come with names, but many do not.

Daniel Defoe. Roxana [1724]. Edited by John Mullan. Oxford University Press, 2008.

Multiple personality in Preface to Roxana (post 1) by Daniel Defoe (post 2): The novel is a collaboration between the character and writer personalities.

Roxana is the first-person narrative of a beautiful lady. According to the preface (see below), the narrative is her words, somewhat dressed up by the Relator and edited by the Writer, especially to avoid indecencies. The Writer knew Roxana’s first husband and father-in-law, and the veracity of that part of her narrative suggests to him that the rest of it is true, too.

Are the Relator and the Writer the same person? If they are, why use the two different names, and why use “we” in the preface’s last sentence? Or, perhaps, “we” refers to the writer and Defoe.

Indeed, who wrote the preface? If Daniel Defoe wrote the preface, then he is not The Writer, unless Defoe is referring to himself in the third-person (which people with multiple personality sometimes do).

Preface (abridged) 

“The History of this Beautiful Lady, is to speak for itself: If it is not as Beautiful as the Lady herself is reported to be…the Relator says, it must be from the Defect of his Performance; dressing up the Story in worse Cloaths than the Lady, whose words he speaks…

“The Writer says, He was particularly acquainted with this Lady’s First Husband…and with his Father…and knows that first Part of the Story to be Truth…This may, he hopes, be a Pledge for the Credit of the rest…she has told it herself…

“If there are any Parts of her Story, which being oblig’d to relate a wicked Action, seem to describe it too plainly, the Writer says, all imaginable Care has been taken to keep clear of Indecencies…

“In the mean time, the Advantages of the present Work are so great, and the Virtuous Reader has room for so much Improvement, that we make no Question, the Story…will…be read both with Profit and Delight.”

Comment: In past posts, many other writers have been quoted as saying how their characters are like alternate personalities who come to them (not from them) and tell their story to a writer personality. The latter may or may not be the same as the regular, everyday, host personality.

According to this preface, the writer personality knew and spoke with three other personalities—Roxana, her first husband, and his father—and got Roxana’s whole story directly from her, with partial corroboration from the other two.

To whom does “we” refer? Relator & Writer? Writer & Defoe? Roxana, Writer, and Defoe? All I can say is that “we,” when used in regard to one person, refers to more than one personality.

The only other possibility I can think of is that “we” is an editorial “we” of the publisher. But it seems unlikely that the publisher would say the writer knew Roxana’s relatives.

Daniel Defoe. Roxana, The Fortunate Mistress, or, a History of the Life and Vast Variety of Fortunes of Mademoiselle de Beleau, afterwards called the Countess de Wintselsheim in Germany, Being the Person known by the Name of the Lady Roxana in the time of Charles II. Edited with an introduction and Notes by John Mullan. Oxford University Press, 1724/2008.