BASIC CONCEPTS

— When novelists claim they do not invent it, but hear voices and find stories in their head, they are neither joking nor crazy.

— When characters, narrators, or muses have minds of their own and occasionally take over, they are alternate personalities.

— Alternate personalities and memory gaps, but no significant distress or dysfunction, is a normal version of multiple personality.

— normal Multiple Personality Trait (MPT) (core of Multiple Identity Literary Theory), not clinical Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)

— The normal version of multiple personality is an asset in fiction writing when some alternate personalities are storytellers.

— Multiple personality originates when imaginative children with normal brains have unassuaged trauma as victim or witness.

— Psychiatrists, whose standard mental status exam fails to ask about memory gaps, think they never see multiple personality.

— They need the clue of memory gaps, because alternate personalities don’t acknowledge their presence until their cover is blown.

— In novels, most multiple personality, per se, is unnoticed, unintentional, and reflects the author’s view of ordinary psychology.

— Multiple personality means one person who has more than one identity and memory bank, not psychosis or possession.

— Euphemisms for alternate personalities include parts, pseudonyms, alter egos, doubles, double consciousness, voice or voices.

— Multiple personality trait: 90% of fiction writers; possibly 30% of public.

— Each time you visit, search "name index" or "subject index," choose another name or subject, and search it.

— If you read only recent posts, you miss most of what this site has to offer.

— Share site with friends.

Tuesday, May 14, 2019


William Faulkner (post 7): In 1958 audio recording of interview, Faulkner says, “I think that a writer is a perfect case of split personality”

Today, I noticed that some unidentified visitor to the blog was looking at an old 2014 post on William Faulkner. So I was prompted to do some online browsing on Faulkner, and came upon an audio recording of an interview.

There is no explanation of why the interview was done by a department of psychiatry. It appears that Faulkner was a visitor (not a patient), and that the psychiatrists had invited him to discuss the psychology of being a writer and human nature, since writers and psychiatrists have a mutual interest in understanding people.

This is an excerpt from the audio recording and transcript:

William Faulkner: …I think that—that a writer is a—a perfect case of split personality, that he is one thing while he is a writer, and he is something else while he's a—a—a denizen of—of the world. It may be that—that that's not—that he can't be rid of that split…(1).

1. http://faulkner.lib.virginia.edu/display/wfaudio28_1
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thank you for taking the time to comment (whether you agree or disagree) and ask questions (simple or expert). I appreciate your contribution.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)