Alexandre Dumas’ “The Count of Monte Cristo” (post 6): Is Monte Cristo an alternate personality of protagonist Edmond Dantès? Did Dumas know it?

The protagonist’s multiple pseudonyms have led some readers to think of multiple personality, momentarily. But they quickly reject the idea for four reasons: 1.The protagonist needs aliases to avoid going back to prison, 2. He wants revenge, and does not want to put his enemies on guard, 3. Neither the narrator nor any character ever says or implies that he has multiple personality (I haven’t finished the novel, so I don’t know that the third reason is true, but I’m guessing that it is), and 4. Monte Cristo is much higher functioning than Edmond Dantès ever had been, so how can he be only an alternate personality?

But if Edmond Dantès did not have multiple personality, then why has the narrator, for hundreds of pages, not referred to Monte Cristo as Edmond Dantès in Monte Cristo’s private thoughts (see post 5)?

Without referring to Monte Cristo as Edmond Dantès in Monte Cristo’s private thoughts, it is as if Monte Cristo did not think of himself as Edmond Dantès, which is exactly how it would be if Monte Cristo were Dantès’ alternate personality, since alternate personalities think of themselves as literally being other people. 

(Alternate personalities are often aware of the regular personality, especially if they came into being with a mission to protect the regular personality, which appears to be the case with Monte Cristo; but, as I said, they think of themselves as other people.)

Can an alternate personality like Monte Cristo be higher functioning than the original personality like Edmond Dantès? Yes. That is often the case.

Most readers miss the presence of multiple personality in novels, because they expect that the issue would be more or less explicit, and they don’t make that interpretation unless it is. But as I’ve shown in the works of literally hundreds of writers, most multiple personality in novels is not explicitly acknowledged, because multiple personality, per se, is usually not in the novel intentionally. It is in the novel only as a reflection of the author’s sense of ordinary psychology, based on the author’s own psychology.