“The Bird’s Nest” by Shirley Jackson (post 6): Humorous novel of young woman with four alternate personalities concludes when fifth personality takes over.

Elizabeth, a young woman with headaches and memory gaps (common symptoms of multiple personality), is diagnosed with multiple personality after the doctor and patient’s aunt meet Elizabeth’s four distinct personalities: Elizabeth, Beth, Betsy, and Bess.

The story is a fairly realistic case history, with the point of view switching among Elizabeth’s four personalities, her Aunt Morgan, and the doctor, all of whom are often in seriously humorous distress.

The novel ends with the apparent disappearance of all four of Elizabeth’s named personalities, but with the appearance of a fifth personality, who is nameless:

“She was awakened from her enchantment at a quarter to four on an afternoon in July…Her first clear thought was that she was all alone; it had been preceded by a rebellious, not-clear feeling that she had succeeded in remembering absolutely all her mind would hold; the second thought…she phrased almost aloud: I haven’t any name, she told herself, here I am, all alone and without any name” (1, pp. 360-361).

Her aunt’s impression was that her niece was now a “Goddamn unfeeling heartless icicle…she is…as a vessel emptied…Much of what was emotion has been lost; the facts are there, the memory clear, but the feeling for these things is suspended” (1, p. 373).

On the last page of the novel, the doctor says to Aunt Morgan, “This child is without a name. Did you know?” So they call her “Victoria Morgan,” who says she is happy and knows who she is (1, p. 380).

The novel thus ends with the protagonist no longer in crisis or causing a disturbance. But her multiple personality has not been cured.

If her multiple personality had been cured (by the integration of all her personalities into one multifaceted personality), then she would have retained her name, Elizabeth, and would have had all the emotions of all four personalities. But she does not. So where are these emotions now? Still in the other four personalities, who are lying low, behind the scenes.

As soon as this newly discovered personality said she remembered what the other four personalities had known, but was nameless (search “nameless” in this blog), it was clear that she was another alternate personality, but of a kind referred to in the textbook as a “memory trace personality,” which “can provide historical information on past events and the activities of other personalities” but “tends to be passive” (2, p. 110).

In short, a young woman with covert, camouflaged, multiple personality since childhood (multiple personality starts in childhood) has a time of crisis as a young adult, during which some of her alternate personalities become overt and readily diagnosable. The crisis passes, and most of her alternate personalities revert to their usual life behind the scenes.

1. Shirley Jackson. The Magic of Shirley Jackson. Edited by Stanley Edgar Hyman. Short Stories, The Bird’s Nest [1954], Life Among the Savages, Raising Demons. New York, Farrar Straus Giroux, 1966.

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