“A Bigamist’s Daughter” by Alice McDermott (post 2): Last lines highlight protagonist’s secretiveness and lying, symptoms of multiple personality

In the novel’s last three lines, the protagonist describes herself as she begins a journey and expects to meet new men. She is: “A hall of mirrors and secrets. A mystery. If she likes him, she knows she’ll lie” (1, p. 294).

The novel’s title issue—whether her father was a bigamist—is never answered.

There is one example of hearing the voice of an alternate personality: “I heard myself urging me to ask him…” (1, p. 134).

But the ultimate issues of this novel, which the author highlights with her last lines, are secretiveness and lying. And the main thing for readers to understand is that these are common symptoms of multiple personality.

The secretiveness is based on alternate personalities’ wish to maintain their privacy. The lying has two main causes: 1. different personalities may differ in their memories, interests, and opinions, resulting in views that may contradict each other and what other people know and see, and 2. some personalities like to make things up (which is good for fiction writing).

Since lying in multiple personality is a recurrent subject in this blog, please search “lying” to read many discussions regarding other writers.

As in most novels, the issue of multiple personality is unacknowledged, and its symptoms are present only as a reflection of the author’s psychology.

1. Alice McDermott. A Bigamist’s Daughter [1982]. New York, Picador/Farrar Straus Giroux, 2012.