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.

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Friday, June 24, 2022

“Psycho” by Robert Bloch (post 2): Woman who will stop at Norman Bates’ motel hears the voice of her own italics-rendered alternate personality


After Mary Crane steals money and takes a wrong turn in her getaway car, the voice of her alternate personality says, in italics, “Get a grip on yourself now. You can’t afford to be panicky…


“It was true, she told herself. The worst part was over. The worst part had come yesterday afternoon, when she stole the money” (1, p. 17).


Comment: Why does this character have multiple personality, too? Possibly because it reflects the multiple personality trait of the author, who, judging by himself, considers it ordinary psychology.


However, Mary, like the author, would have only multiple personality trait; whereas, Norman, who is mentally ill, has multiple personality disorder.


Search “italics” for discussion of similar use of italics by other writers.


1. Robert Bloch. Psycho [1959]. New York, The Overlook Press, 2021.

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