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.