Multiple Senses of Identity in “Boyhood” by J. M. Coetzee (post 3): Alternate personalities related to language, anger, invincibility, and avoidance.

Multilingual people think, feel, and act somewhat differently when speaking each of their languages, but most do not feel like another person, which is how the protagonist feels:

“When he speaks Afrikaans all the complications of life seem suddenly to fall away. Afrikaans is like a ghostly envelope that accompanies him everywhere, that he is free to slip into, becoming at once another person, simpler, gayer, lighter in his tread” (1, p. 106).

Similarly, it is not uncommon for people to act immature under certain threatening circumstances, but in most people the “inner child” is not as concretely experienced as this, which looks like the description of a very young, angry, child-aged alternate personality:

“…shouting and storming and crying…the baby behavior that he knows is still inside him, coiled like a spring…the ugly, black, crying babyish core of him…” (1, pp. 94-95).

In other threatening situations, the protagonist was sometimes aware of “something deeper inside him, something quite jaunty, that said, ‘Never mind, nothing can touch you, this is just another adventure’ " (1, p. 95).

The latter appears to be the voice of a somewhat older, more verbal, alternate personality.

Yet another alternate personality inside him may sometimes intervene when he does not want to hear or see something: “…he can feel a hand go up inside his own head to block his ears, block his sight” (1, p. 136).

Of these four alternate personalities, only the Afrikaans one typically comes “out” and temporarily controls behavior. The other three generally stay inside—where most alternate personalities are, most of the time—but may affect the host personality through feelings, voices, or changes in perception.

Of course, if you have neither witnessed nor experienced alternate personalities, and if you have not read all my posts on over a hundred other writers, you may think I am mistakenly reifying Coetzee’s metaphors.

1. J. M. Coetzee. Scenes from Provincial Life: Boyhood [1997], Youth [2002], Summertime [2009]. New York, Penguin Books, 2011.