“The Saga of Gösta Berling” by Selma Lagerlöf (post 2): The dual personality of Marianne is now multiplied and in two genders

In the previous post, the personality of the character, Marianne, was described as having two distinct halves, which is the simplest form of multiple personality. Thirty pages later, the description of the character’s multiple personality is elaborated into more than two parts and more than one gender (see “his” below):

“…She felt his eyes of ice and scornful smile follow every step, every word…

“She was divided into two halves. Pale, unsympathetic, and scornful, one half of herself sat and watched how the other half acted, and never did the peculiar spirit that picked apart her being have a word of feeling or sympathy…

“And if you look carefully, behind it sits an even paler being, who stares and paralyzes and smiles scornfully, and behind that another and another, smiling scornfully at one another and at the whole world…

“…Everything turned to pretense and unreality under the eyes of ice that were watching her, while they in turn were watched by a pair behind them, who were watched by another pair in an infinite perspective” (1, pp. 112-114).

At the end of this chapter, after Marianne has become estranged from the man she loves, Gösta Berling, she writes a letter to him, which she meant to be poetry. She never sends it. But it is apparently so meaningful to the character (and the author) that it is quoted in its entirety for more than a whole page at the end of the chapter.

The poetry is in two distinct parts. The four stanzas of the first part all begin with, and address, “Child”; for example, “Child, you have loved, but never more shall you taste the delights of love” (1, p. 134). “Child, the only one is gone and with him all love and delight in loving” (1, p. 135). Whatever personality is writing the poem appears to be addressing another of Marianne’s personalities as “Child.” (An adult-aged alternate personality is addressing a child-aged, or at least younger, alternate personality.)

The second group of stanzas is addressed to her love, Gösta Berling, asking him, if he can no longer love her, to at least not let his love turn to hate: “I will ask you for a single thing, you my beloved: Never place on me the burden of hate!” (1, p. 135).

With Marianne’s estrangement from Gösta Berling, the author appears to be writing this character out of the story. If so, then the narrator’s whole psychological analysis of this character would appear to be gratuitous, and of no continuing interest to the novel. Thus, the only reason it is in the novel is that the author felt multiple personality trait was ordinary psychology. But aside from 90% of novelists (possibly including this author), and perhaps 30% of the general public, it is not.

1. Selma Lagerlöf. The Saga of Gösta Berling [1891]. Translated by Paul Norlen. New York, Penguin Books, 2009.