“Enchantment” by Daphne Merkin: The author of this autobiographical novel is an exceptional writer who does NOT have multiple personality.

Not all novelists have multiple personality. Daphne Merkin’s autobiographical novel, Enchantment, is about a woman with episodes of major depression since childhood.

“I first seriously entertained the idea of suicide when I was nine or ten” (1, p. 228).

When Hannah was fifteen, she went on a school outing from New York to Washington, D.C. Since her seat on the bus was not near the popular girls, “I cried steadily for the four hours that it took to get to Washington” (1, p. 47).

The relatively few times she speaks of a voice in her head, it is not a multiple personality kind of voice, with a mind of its own. Rather, it expresses, or is a metaphor for, her depression: “The voice I carried inside me…spoke…a language of deflation” (1, p. 83).

When some people with multiple personality look in the mirror, they see an image that looks different from their objective appearance; they see one of their alternate personalities. In contrast, when Hannah looks in the mirror, she sees her objective appearance (1, p. 170). Search “mirror” and “mirrors” in this blog for past posts on multiple personality kinds of mirror experiences in the works of other writers.

“I am twenty-six but I am really six, looking to be special” (1, p. 210). Because of her depressive need for extra emotional support, she may sometimes act childish (as opposed to having a child-aged alternate personality, which may make a person with multiple personality sometimes act childlike).

For a nonfiction, detailed description of Merkin’s decades of depression, treatment with antidepressant medication, and psychoanalytically-oriented psychotherapy, see her magazine articles (2, 3).

Clues to the presence of multiple personality — e.g., memory gaps, hearing voices with minds of their own, seeing alternate personalities in the mirror, puzzling inconsistencies and self-contradictions, speaking of oneself in the third person, namelessness, author’s pseudonyms, lying due to the different views of different personalities, fugues — are missing from both Merkin’s novel and her life.

1. Daphne Merkin. Enchantment. New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986.

2. Daphne Merkin. “A Journey Through Darkness.” The New York Times Magazine. May 6, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/10/magazine/10Depression-t.html
3. Daphne Merkin. “My Life in Therapy.” The New York Times Magazine. August 4, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/magazine/08Psychoanalysis-t.html