“The White Plague” (post 2) by Frank Herbert: A New Personality

“The pattern of change built itself slowly in John Roe O’Neill…At such times, he thought of the old beliefs in possession. It was like that—another personality taking over his flesh and nerves.

Much later, he came to a personal accommodation with this Other, even a sense of familiarity and identity. He thought of it then as partly his own making, partly a thing rising out of primal darkness, a deliberate creation for the task of revenge. Certainly, his Old Self had not been up to such a deed. The kindly teacher-of-the-young could not have contemplated such a plan for an instant. The Other had to come into being first.

As this change became fixed in its purpose, John saw an astonishing alteration in his appearance. The old almost plump self went stringing down to a slender, nervous man…The change within him had become an obsession. Then he looked at himself in the bedroom mirror one Saturday morning and knew he would have to take action. Mary and the twins had been dead and buried four months. The Other was strong in him now; a new face, a new personality” (1, pp. 28-29).

1. Frank Herbert. The White Plague. New York, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1982.

2. Wikipedia. “The White Plague.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Plague.