“The Lord of the Rings” by J. R. R. Tolkien (post 10): Sméagol-Gollum may have gratuitous multiple personality, serving no purpose and unintentional.

I have just finished the chapter “Taming of Sméagol,” and he is clearly portrayed as having multiple personality by his continually making plural self-reference as Gollum, singular self-reference as Sméagol, and the fact that other characters notice a distinct change in his behavior when he goes from one personality to the other.

And since Gollum often talks about Sméagol by name—e.g., “Don’t ask Sméagol. Poor, poor Sméagol, he went away long ago. They took his Precious [the magic ring], and he’s lost now” (1, p. 616)—but Sméagol has not commented on Gollum by name, it is not clear that the Sméagol personality is even aware of the Gollum personality, which would add support to a multiple personality diagnosis.

And so far, there has been no purpose served by the split personality, such as a good vs. evil morality tale. Both of these personalities are good at times, but Sméagol had strangled a friend to death, and Gollum tries to strangle Sam. So a single personality with ambivalence and mixed motivations would have served just as well.

Most significant is the fact that a character in a novel has rather obvious multiple personality, but multiple personality, per se, is not explicitly raised as an issue by any narrator or character: which may mean that the author did not intend to portray multiple personality, but inadvertently did so as a reflection of his own psychology.

1. J. R. R. Tolkien. The Lord of the Rings [1954-55]. 50th Anniversary One-Volume Edition. New York, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004.