“Play It As It Lays” by Joan Didion (post 4): Maria sees someone else in the mirror, a symptom of multiple personality

Some reviewers liked this novel (1), others didn’t (2), but none realized that the protagonist has symptoms of multiple personality. In addition to the symptoms discussed in previous posts, there is this:

“She looked again into the hand mirror and again saw her mother” (3, p. 64).

Readers may think that the above is purely metaphorical, if they don’t know it is a symptom of multiple personality (4). The text does not say that a family resemblance reminded her of her mother, but that she “saw her mother.” She saw an alternate personality that originated as an identification with her mother.

Assuming that the author did not intend to imply that the protagonist has multiple personality, I infer that the presence of such symptoms in this novel—what I call “gratuitous multiple personality”—may be a reflection of the author’s multiple personality trait.

1. John Leonard. “The Cities of the Desert, The Desert of the Mind.” The New York Times of July 21, 1970. https://www.nytimes.com/1970/07/21/archives/books-of-the-times-the-cities-of-the-desert-the-desert-of-the-mind.html

2. Lore Segal. “Maria knew what ‘nothing’ means.” The New York Times of August 9, 1970. https://www.nytimes.com/1970/08/09/archives/maria-knew-what-nothing-means-play-it-as-it-lays-play-it.html

3. Joan Didion. Play It As It Lays [1970]. New York, Farrar Straus Giroux, 2005.

4. Frank W. Putnam, MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. New York, The Guilford Press, 1989, p. 62.