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.

Saturday, November 21, 2020

Alexandre Dumas' “The Count of Monte Cristo” (post 4): Monte Cristo (Edmond Dantès incognito) calls himself “us” (multiple-personality plural)


“Then, when the king’s prosecutor had gone, Monte Cristo [now alone] forced himself to smile despite the weight on his soul and said: ‘Come, come. Enough of poison. Now that my heart is full of it, let us go and find the antidote’ ” (1, p. 558).


As mentioned in many past posts, when people with multiple personality have not been diagnosed—when the cover of their alternate personalities has not been blown—it is typical for alternate personalities to go about their business incognito. Thus, when the plot of a novel features characters who are incognito, it is a multiple-personality scenario.


Multiple personality is designed to keep itself hidden, but people with multiple personality occasionally slip and refer to themselves in the plural. It is more likely that an alternate personality, as opposed to the host personality, will make this slip, because it is more likely that an alternate personality will be aware that there are other personalities.


If persons with multiple personality are socializing with people who know them by their regular name, then the alternate personality will be incognito by answering to the regular name. But if the person is socializing with people who don’t know them by their regular name, then the alternate personality will be incognito by using its own name (different from the person’s regular name). Here, the alternate personality’s name is “Monte Cristo.”


Edmond Dantès and Monte Cristo do not behave like the same person. Most readers attribute this to Dantès’ tutoring by Abbé Faria, the fact that he is now twenty years older [and rich], and to his not wanting his enemies to know who he is. But whereas most people continue to have the same basic personality and are not superb actors, Dantès and his alternate personality Cristo are distinctly different.


1. Alexandre Dumas. The Count of Monte Cristo [1845]. Translated by Robin Buss. London, Penguin Books, 1996. 

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)