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, December 3, 2023

“The Da Vinci Code” (post 2) by Dan Brown: Italicized voices in Sophie’s head probably reflect the author’s multiple personality trait

“…she could feel the weight of the rosewood box on her lap and resented it.“Why did my grandfather give this to me? [said Sophie’s own, italicized, self-reflective voice in her head.] She had not the slightest idea what to do with it.

“Think, Sophie! Use your head. Grand-pére is trying to tell you something! [said the voice of her grandfather personality.]

“She could feel her grandfather’s hand at work. The keystone is a map that can be followed only by the worthy. [Spoken by the italicized voice of her grandfather personality.] It sounded like her grandfather to the core” (1, p. 283).


Comment: If Sophie’s mind had only ordinary thoughts, the text would state “she thought that…” and/or “she thought.” It does not refer to ordinary thoughts per se, because she tends to hear voices (of alternate personalities) in her head, one of which represents her deceased grandfather.


Since Sophie is not labeled as having multiple personality, I would guess that Sophie’s multiplicity of voices reflects the author’s multiple personality trait (see post 1).


1. Dan Brown. The Da Vinci Code. New York, Anchor Books, 2003.

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