“The Twin” by Gerbrand Bakker (post 2): The multiple personality theme of identical twins—“We were two boys with one body”

Helmer, the protagonist and first-person narrator, and his identical twin, Henk, had been mostly identified with each other until their mid to later teens: “We belonged together, we were two boys with one body” (1, p. 199) (like two personalities in one body).

But then, Helmer was starting university and Henk was to stay on the farm with their father. And when Henk fell in love with a girl named Riet, “We had become a pair of twins with two bodies” (1, p. 199).

However, there was then a car accident in which Henk died (Riet was driving). So Helmer left the university and came back to the family farm to take Henk’s place (Riet went away).

Helmer has now worked on, and then run, the family farm for the last thirty years (and also cares for his now elderly, invalid father).

Indeed, when Helmer left the university and came back to live as a farmer, he seems to have switched personalities in regard to intellectual interests, since now, thirty years later, he says, “It’s been a long time since I read a book” (1, p. 178).

Comment

There was no literary necessity to make Helmer and Henk identical twins or even twins. The plot could have worked just as well if they had been fraternal twin brothers or merely siblings. So I consider the author’s choice of identical twins—two boys with one body, like two personalities in one body—to reflect the author’s psychological affinity to multiple personality.

1. Gerbrand Bakker. The Twin [2006]. Translated from the Dutch by David Colmer. Brooklyn NY, Archipelago Books, 2009.