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.

Sunday, June 6, 2021

Disappearance of Agatha Christie (post 10): Publicity stunt? Attempt to frame or embarrass her husband? Nervous breakdown? Dissociative fugue?


Wikipedia

“In August 1926, Archie asked Agatha for a divorce. He had fallen in love with Nancy Neele, a friend of Major Belcher. On 3 December 1926, the pair quarreled after Archie announced his plan to spend the weekend with friends, unaccompanied by his wife. Late that evening, Christie disappeared from their home. The following morning, her car…was discovered at Newlands Corner, parked above a chalk quarry with an expired driving license and clothes inside.


“The disappearance quickly became a news story, as the press sought to satisfy their readers' ‘hunger for sensation, disaster, and scandal.’ Home secretary Willian Joyson-Hicks pressured police, and a newspaper offered a £100 reward (approximately equivalent to £6,000 in 2019). More than a thousand police officers, 15,000 volunteers, and several aeroplanes searched the rural landscape. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gave a spirit medium one of Christie's gloves to find her. Christie's disappearance was featured on the front page of The New York Times. Despite the extensive manhunt, she was not found for another 10 days. On 14 December 1926, she was located at the Swan Hydropathic Hotel in Harrogate, Yorkshire, registered as Mrs Tressa Neele (the surname of her husband's lover) from ‘Capetown S.A.’ (South Africa). The next day, Christie left for her sister's residence at Abney Hall, Cheadle, where she was sequestered ‘in guarded hall, gates locked, telephone cut off, and callers turned away.’


“Christie's autobiography makes no reference to the disappearance. Two doctors diagnosed her as suffering from ‘an unquestionable genuine loss of memory,’ yet opinion remains divided over the reason for her disappearance. Some, including her biographer Morgan, believe she disappeared during a fugue state. The author Jared Cade concluded that Christie planned the event to embarrass her husband but did not anticipate the resulting public melodrama. Christie biographer Laura Thompson provides an alternative view that Christie disappeared during a nervous breakdown, conscious of her actions but not in emotional control of herself. Public reaction at the time was largely negative, supposing a publicity stunt or an attempt to frame her husband for murder” (1).


Comment

Agatha Christie’s disappearance is also discussed by The New York Times (2) and by a book review of a recent novel about the disappearance (3), which I may read, even though my past posts already make the case that she had multiple personality trait (search “Agatha Christie” and “dissociative fugue”).


1. Wikipedia. Agatha Christie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha_Christie

2. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/books/agatha-christie-vanished-11-days-1926.html

3. “The Mystery of Agatha Christie” by Marie Benedict. https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/agatha-christie-disappearance-novel/2020/12/29/5c06fb2a-4559-11eb-a277-49a6d1f9dff1_story.html

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)