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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Friday, August 11, 2023

“Twisted Love” (post 3) by Ana Huang: Alex’s Out-of-Character Singing May Allude to Famous Multiple Personality Literary Character, Trilby

Trilby was the title character of a famous novel (1) about a tone-deaf artists’ model who is hypnotized by Svengali and transformed into having a very different, alternate personality, by virtue of which she becomes a famous, superstar singer (1).


“…special performance. Please put your hands together for Alex Volkov…

“I realize this is quite a surprise, as a live performance wasn’t in the program tonight,” Alex said. "And if you know me, you know I’m not famous for my patronage of the arts—or my singing skills…I’m not the best at expressing my emotions. That’s why I’ve never liked singing. It’s all emotion, and it feels too vulnerable. I can’t stand it…"(2, pp. 311-317).


Comment: I don’t know if Ana Huang had ever read Trilby, but her suddenly making inartistic Alex into a publicly performing singer made me think of it as a literary allusion, and as an answer to my question in post 1 about setting the stage for multiple personality. Search “Trilby” in this blog.


1. Wikipedia. “Trilby.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilby_(novel)

2. Ana Huang. Twisted Love (Twisted Series, Book One). Naperville, Illinois, Bloom Books, 2022.

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