Dickens’ (post 4) “Tale of Two Cities” (post 2): Dr. Manette's multiple personality (two personalities, memory gaps); Darnay, Carton look-alike doubles.

When first seen after being released from eighteen years in prison, Dr. Manette had been in his alternate personality, identifying himself not as Dr. Manette, but as “One Hundred and Five, North Tower” (1, p. 46). However, when next seen five years later, testifying at Darnay’s treason trial, he has switched back to his regular personality, Dr. Manette, who has memory gaps:

“My mind is blank from some time—I cannot even say what time—when I employed myself, in my captivity, in making shoes, to the time when I found myself living in London with my dear daughter here. She had become familiar to me, when a gracious God restored my faculties; but, I am quite unable even to say how she had become familiar. I have no remembrance of the process” (1, p. 78).

Two (or more) personalities plus memory gaps are the psychiatric diagnostic criteria for multiple personality.

As I read further, I will be interested to see what reason, if any, is given for portraying Dr. Manette as having multiple personality, since the horror of his imprisonment could have been dramatized without giving him multiple personality, per se.

That Darnay and Carton look alike—a literary metaphor for multiple personality, since alternate personalities do look alike—will, obviously, be integral to the plot. But did it have to be? Surely that is not the only means by which a character can make a noble sacrifice.

In this blog, I have found unnecessary multiple personality in so many novels (not only in the nineteenth century) that I have had to give it a name, “gratuitous multiple personality,” which, since it isn’t necessary to the story, probably reflects the author’s own psychology.

1. Charles Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities. New York, Signet Classics, 2007.