“Aurora Leigh” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (post 5): Ending possibly explained by multiple personality

Marian Says She’s Still Dead

“But for me, Once Killed, this ghost of Marian loves no more, No more..except the child!..no more at all. I told your cousin, sir, that I was dead; And now, she thinks I’ll get up from my grave…” (1, p. 297).

She feels that her dissociated (ghostly) Marian personality had been a degraded hero-worshipper, but her mothering Marian personality is upstanding and self-respecting.

Romney’s Blindness

Since there is no clear medical explanation, he may have had what used to be called “hysterical blindness.”

“Visual disturbances, ranging from ‘hysterical diplopia’ [double vision] to complete blindness, are reported in about a fifth of MPD patients” (2, p. 66).

Aurora’s Hidden Love for Romney

“Now I know I loved you always, Romney” (1, p. 305).

Aurora may have had warring male (writing) and female (loving) personalities: “It seems as if I had a man in me, Despising such a woman” (1, p. 221). But now these personalities have made peace.

1. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Aurora Leigh [1856/1859]. Edited by Margaret Reynolds. A Norton Critical Edition. New York, W. W. Norton, 1996.

2. Frank W. Putnam, MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. New York, The Guilford Press, 1989.