“The Saga of Gösta Berling” by Selma Lagerlöf (post 4): A sane character, Anna, hears voices; meaning she, too, probably has multiple personality

As previously noted, the character, Marianne, was described, mentally, as having two halves. Later, it was described how the protagonist, Gösta, awoke one morning and found that his alternate personality had written a lengthy poem during the night, which he hadn’t remembered. Now, it is casually mentioned that another nonpsychotic character, Anna, hears voices (which, in a sane person, would likely be the voices of alternate personalities):

“…Anna Stjärnhök…struggled to deaden inner voices that already began whispering to her…that now she was finally free (1, p. 310).

“…Anna Stjärnhök could not yet speak; she was still listening to the many voices in the depths of her soul” (1, p. 311).

Since the above phenomena of all three characters are casually mentioned, not labelled as multiple personality, and are not necessary to the plot—what I call, in a novel, "gratuitous multiple personality"—they appear to be in the novel only as a reflection of the author’s sense of ordinary psychology, probably based on the author’s own psychology (which would be another example of multiple personality trait in a great fiction writer).

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