“Labrador” by Kathryn Davis (post 2): Rogni, the Angel, is revealed to be Kitty’s alternate personality, but Kitty doesn’t acknowledge it

Kitty tells her older sister, Willie, about an incident in the past. According to Kitty, her angel, Rogni, had kissed Willie. But Willie says it was Kitty who had kissed her, which means that “Rogni” had been Kitty’s alternate personality.

“And then Rogni came in,” I said. “And he held on to you and kissed you.”

“Rogni?”

“The angel.”

“There were never any angels, Kitty,” you said. “Besides, that was you. You were the one who kissed me. How could you forget that?”

“Cut it out, Willie,” I said [still not understanding that Rogni is an alternate personality] (1, p. 80).

In the past incident, Kitty’s regular personality had been watching her alternate personality, Rogni the angel, kiss her sister. Of course, to the sister, it looked like Kitty was kissing her, because Rogni was Kitty’s alternate personality (using Kitty’s one and only body).

Reviewers, like most readers, tend to attune themselves to the narrator’s perspective, and since the narrator, Kitty, is in denial (“Cut it out, Willie.), the reviewers must have missed the point of the above passage, or at least failed to mention it in their reviews.

1. Kathryn Davis. Labrador. New York, Farrar Straus Giroux, 1988.