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.

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Tuesday, December 1, 2020

Alexandre Dumas’ “The Count of Monte Cristo” (post 10): Why don’t Edmond Dantès’ enemies recognize him when he poses as Monte Cristo?


Edmond Dantès has false identities like Abbé Busoni, who alter their appearance to avoid being recognized, but Monte Cristo doesn’t alter his appearance, so why don’t his enemies recognize that he is Edmond Dantès?


Near the end of the novel, when the Monte Cristo alternate personality has completed the mission for which it was created—revenge—there is a scene in which Villefort, who had sent Dantès to prison, finally recognizes him:


“My God!” Villefort cried, shrinking back with a horrified look on his face. “That voice! It is not Abbé Busoni’s!”…The abbé tore off his tonsured wig…“That is the face of Monte Cristo!” Villefort exclaimed, looking aghast…“That voice! That voice! Where did I hear it for the first time?…You are not Busoni? You are not Monte Cristo?…Ah! I recognize you, I do recognize you!” the crown prosecutor said. “You are…”


“I am Edmond Dantès!” (1, pp. 1180-1181).


In multiple personality, some personalities are so different from each other—in tone of voice, facial expression, posture, attitude, etc.—that they seem like different people.


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

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