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.

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Sunday, April 23, 2023

“Wifey” (post 3) by Judy Blume: Two Conversations Involving Sandy’s Alternate Personality, whose words are Italicized only in the second one 


   “How easy it should be to hate this overconfident, independent woman! How easy to hate this Brenda, who wanted to renew her relationship with Norman on a ‘special occasions’ basis.


   Sandy, you sound jealous.

   I’m pissed, not jealous.

   You could have fooled me!” (1, p. 273).

   (The above is a dialogue in Sandy's mind).


“Was it good with him? [Norman asks]

“Different.” [Sandy replies]

“You always come twice with me.”

“Yes.”

“Did you with him?”

“No.” How about a five-course meal, kid? (1, p. 285)

 (The alternate personality comments at the end.)


Further Comment: In this novel, Judy Blume is quite inconsistent with her use and disuse of italics; and she never notes that some of what is said is probably said by her protagonist’s alternate personality. 

1. Judy Blume. Wifey. New York, Berkley Books, 1978/2005.

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