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.

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Sunday, June 4, 2023

“American Gods” by Neil Gaiman: As novel begins, the protagonist, a convict named Shadow, hears a voice in his head


“There was a voice in the back of his head whispering that they were going to slap another year onto his sentence, drop him into solitary, cut off his hands, cut off his head. He told himself he was being stupid, but his heart was pounding fit to burst out of his chest” (1, p. 10).


Comment: The protagonist, Shadow, has not been described as mentally ill, but only worried that his scheduled release from prison will be delayed.


The question here is why the author would think that a worried, but mentally well person, might hear a voice in his head? Does the author consider it ordinary psychology? If so, why?


As discussed in many past posts, voices in the head of a mentally well person may be voices of alternate personalities. Does the author intend to portray Shadow as having multiple personality? I don’t know.


1. Neil Gaiman. American Gods. New York, William Morrow/HarperCollins, 2001/2021.


Next Day: I soon stopped reading this book, because it didn't make sense. Is this what's called "Absurdist fiction" (Wikipedia)?

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