“Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School” by Charles Hamilton writing as Frank Richards (post 8): Liars, lying, and double consciousness in multiple personality

Based on his use of twenty-eight pseudonyms, I have previously speculated that Charles Hamilton had multiple personality, but, until now, I had never read any of the stories for which he was most famous, those about Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School.

One of Billy Bunter’s chief characteristics is his “comically transparent untruthfulness” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Bunter. He is seen by his schoolmates as being an habitual liar.

His lying is “comically transparent,” because he will often show knowledge of things about which he claims to have had no involvement. For example, he claims never to have gone to the room of his classmate Coker and stolen food that had been sent to Coker by a relative. “I—I wouldn’t ! [Bunter, who is a fat glutton, obviously would steal food.] You can ask Snoop, sir ! He knows—I gave him some of the apples…It—it’s all a mistake, sir,” groaned Bunter. “If—if you won’t let me be run in this time, sir, I’ll never do it again, and I never did it at all, sir. I—I think very likely Coker ate it and forgot about it” (1, p. 131).

The joke is that Bunter, honestly, both knows and doesn’t know what he did, something that is possible only for a person with multiple personality. A good term for both knowing and not knowing would be “double consciousness,” a nineteenth century synonym for multiple personality.

Double Consciousness: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ug03/souls/brucepg.html

Note: If this is one of those links that seems to expire, search "double consciousness" in this blog for past posts in which I have quoted from it at length.

1. Frank Richards. Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School. London, Hawk Books, 1991.