“Memoirs of a Geisha” a novel by Arthur Golden: Traumatized protagonist has both childhood and Geisha personalities—“fragments” or “parts"— causing puzzling contradictions in behavior and memory gaps

“…how could Nobu [her adult romantic interest] possibly understand anything about me, when he’d seen me solely as a geisha, keeping my true self carefully concealed? The Chairman [an eminent businessman] was the only man I’d ever entertained as Sayuri the geisha, who had also known me as Chiyo [from her childhood]—though it was strange to think of it this way, for I’d never realized it before…Why couldn’t I stop thinking about the Chairman [and stop saving the handkerchief he’d given her in a kindly gesture, many years ago]? (1, p. 394).

“My thoughts were in fragments I could hardly piece together. Certainly it was true that part of me hoped desperately to be adopted by Mr. Tanaka after my mother died, but another part of me was very much afraid…I don’t know how much time passed…(1, p. 21).

Comment: Persons with undiagnosed multiple personality often report having “parts” and memory gaps (if you ask them) due to alternate personalities, which also may cause puzzling contradictions in the person’s behavior. As in most novels with such symptoms, there is no explicit reference to multiple personality, because the author didn’t realize it was at issue. Search “parts,” “memory gaps,” and “puzzling contradictions” for relevant past posts. Many readers evidently find unlabelled multiple personality entertaining.

1. Arthur Golden. Memoirs of a Geisha. New York, Vintage, 1997.