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.

— If you read only recent posts, you miss most of what this site has to offer.

— Share site with friends.

Saturday, November 19, 2022

“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou: Protagonist, “Marguerite,” is called “Maya” on the back cover and mostly called “Maya” in Wikipedia


It is evidently so absurd that a memoir by “Maya” has a protagonist named “Marguerite” that neither the publisher (back cover) (1) nor the public (2) believed its eyes when reading the actual text.


I will discuss this further when I have finished the book.


1. Maya Angelou. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Foreword by Oprah Winfrey. New York, Ballantine Books, 1969/2015. 

2. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Know_Why_the_Caged_Bird_Sings 

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thank you for taking the time to comment (whether you agree or disagree) and ask questions (simple or expert). I appreciate your contribution.