“A Thousand Acres” by Jane Smiley (post 5): To be or not to be, whether a work of great literature is confused or profound

Previously, I pointed to this novel’s inadvertent lesson that great things can be accomplished only by child-abusing patriarchs. However, the novel can also be interpreted to mean that what seemed to be a great accomplishment really wasn’t, because it was based on miscarriage-inducing poison in the water and broken lives. And, no doubt, it was the latter interpretation that won the literary prizes. But the problem with the nicer interpretation is that the nicer characters try and fail to do a better job.

Many of the most honored works in literature are confused, even silly, but are given the benefit of the doubt. When Hamlet says that people are afraid of having bad dreams after they are dead, why isn’t he laughed off the stage? And when the protagonist of this novel says that she hears voices (see the first post in this series), why don’t most readers insist that this be accounted for and explained?

Most readers don’t expect to understand everything, and if the narrator of this novel forgets about her voices, most readers will be happy to follow her lead. Indeed, if I, myself, hadn’t been reading for this blog, I probably would have ignored the voices and moved on. But here I am trying to understand such things.

The point is, although many novelists don’t seem to realize it, most people do not hear voices. And if they are rational voices, heard by a sane person, they are probably the voices of alternate personalities.

“A Thousand Acres” by Jane Smiley (post 4): Ginny had no further simultaneous thoughts or voices, making them gratuitous multiple personality

In my first post of this series, I quoted passages from mid-novel in which Ginny, the protagonist, said she was experiencing three different thought processes, in different areas of her mind, simultaneously, and was hearing voices.

Since such things, suggestive of multiple personality, were not mentioned either earlier or later in the novel, they were obviously not integral to either the story or character development. So why were they in this novel?

They are one more example of what I call “gratuitous multiple personality.” They are probably in the novel only as a reflection of the author’s own psychology.

“A Thousand Acres” by Jane Smiley (post 3): To what extent are novelists authoritative in regard to their own novels?

Even though A Thousand Acres won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and was made into a movie, Jane Smiley didn’t much like it “either while writing it, or even when finished, in part because King Lear as a literary point of reference meant that ‘I was writing to it rather than it coming from me’…Smiley also recalled that ‘sustaining the ‘I’ point of view was very tedious. At one point I thought, If I have to write one more sentence that starts with ‘I’ I’ll kill myself!’ ” (1, p. 173-174).

Jane Smiley apparently intended her novel to be a corrective to Shakespeare’s King Lear by telling the story from the daughters’ point of view. She would explain that their hostility toward their father was due to his committing incest with them in their childhood.

As the title of the novel highlights, their father’s farm of a thousand acres was monumentally successful. But when he loses control of the farm to his daughters and their husbands, it goes bankrupt.

Did Smiley intend her novel to teach the lesson that great things are accomplished and maintained only by child-abusing patriarchs? No. Of course not. She had somehow lost control.

A Thousand Acres illustrates that novelists are not as in control of what they write as many readers assume. For various reasons, including multiple personality, they do not control, and do not understand, every word.

1. Neil Nakadate. Understanding Jane Smiley. Columbia, University of South Carolina Press, 1999.

“A Thousand Acres” by Jane Smiley (post 2): Difficult concluding paragraph, and Reason this novel is not about “repressed memory”

The final paragraph is narrated by Ginny as follows:

“And when I remember that world, I remember my dead young self, who left me something, too, which is her canning jar of poisoned sausage and the ability it confers, of remembering what you can’t imagine. I can’t say that I forgive my father [for committing incest with her and her sister, Rose], but now I can imagine what he probably chose never to remember—the goad of an unthinkable urge, pricking him, pressing him, wrapping him in an impenetrable fog of self that must have seemed, when he wandered around the house late at night after working and drinking, like the very darkness. This is the gleaming obsidian shard I safeguard above all the others” (1, pp. 370-371).

Previously, Ginny had put poison in sausage, which she hoped would kill her sister Rose, who had stolen Jess from her, and may have come to be seen by Ginny as being evil like their father. But it is strange that Ginny attributes the poisoned sausage to “my dead young self.” Who is that?

Her dead young self confers the ability “of remembering what you can’t imagine” (the incest). This could make sense if the the “dead young self” was the alternate personality who took over for Ginny each time that her father had had sexual intercourse with her in childhood.

It was the Dead Young Self personality who had the incest memory, which was why Ginny (her regular personality) had not remembered the incest until Rose told her that she had also been molested by their father. Evidently, Rose’s memory of incest helped to resurrect (bring out) Ginny’s Dead Young Self personality, who had Ginny’s memory of incest. And I suppose that that personality, because her name included “death,” now thought it was her job to do any killing (the poisoned sausage).

Did Jane Smiley understand her last paragraph? I’m not sure I do. But I can’t forget that the passages I quoted in my previous post indicate that Ginny probably did have multiple personality.

“Repressed Memory,” An Obsolete Concept

Because Ginny appears to have had amnesia for her childhood incest until she remembered it as an adult, this novel may be mistakenly reviewed as involving “repressed memory.” But there is no “repressed memory” in the American Psychiatric Association’s 947-page Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5, 2013). Why is that? Two reasons.

First, all Freudian concepts, including repression, were eliminated from the diagnostic manual nearly forty years ago (DSM-III, 1980). Second, the part of the DSM relevant to Ginny’s memory problem is the chapter on Dissociative Disorders. (There are no repression disorders in DSM-5.)

Ginny’s kind of memory problem has NOT been viewed as repressed into the unconscious for nearly forty years. Rather, it is viewed as dissociated into a segregated, alternate consciousness; for example, into an alternate personality, as seen in dissociative identity disorder (aka multiple personality disorder).

Even psychiatric experts sometimes forget that persons with multiple personality disorder may be said to have amnesia for their history of child abuse only from the point of view of their regular, host personality: one of their alternate personalities has always remembered it (2).

1. Jane Smiley. A Thousand Acres [1991]. New York, Anchor Books, 2003.

2. Kenneth A. Nakdimen, M.D. “Multiples: No Amnesia for Child Abuse.” American Journal of Psychiatry, June 1999. https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/ajp.156.6.976a

“A Thousand Acres” by Jane Smiley: Suddenly, mid-novel, first-person protagonist hears voices, and has three different thoughts simultaneously

Until the middle of this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Ginny—first-person narrator, and oldest of three daughters of an aging farmer—is rather ordinary. But subsequent to an extra-marital encounter with Jess, Ginny has three different thoughts, simultaneously, and she hears voices, with which she is comfortable.

“And I was surprised to discover how my mind worked over these things, the simultaneity of it. I seemed, on the surface, to be continually talking to myself, giving myself instructions or admonishments, asking myself what I really wanted, making comparisons, busily working my rational faculties over every aspect of Jess and my feelings for him…Beneath this voice, flowing more sweetly, was the story: what he did and what I did…And beneath this was an animal, a dog living in me, shaking itself, jumping, barking, attacking, gobbling at things the way a dog gulps its food” (1, p. 172).

Another day, in town, “I got back in the car…I scrunched down in the seat…There was a remote possibility that I would see Jess…He was often the one to run into town if they needed something…He didn’t appear, but thinking of him sparked the voices, and I gave into them, sliding farther down into the seat” (1, pp. 173-174).

Comment

In a nonpsychotic person, the presence of rational voices and multiple, simultaneous thoughts probably indicate multiple personality. In regard to the “dog living in me,” I have previously discussed animal alternate personalities (search “animal alters”). But I have not seen anyone else relate this novel to multiple personality. So I’ll just keep reading.

1. Jane Smiley. A Thousand Acres [1991]. New York, Anchor Books, 2003.

John Steinbeck, in an interview, after receiving the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature, said, “I’ve never looked upon myself as an author”

“I’ve never looked upon myself as an author. The word ‘author’ has always horrified me, the quality of phoniness, fakeness about it you know…I’ve considered myself a writer, because that’s what I do. I don’t know what an author does. An author collects things [Nobel Prizes?]; a writer does the work.”

If you took Steinbeck’s distinction between author and writer at face value, he would seem to be rather silly and petty. But if Steinbeck had more than one personality, and something about that interview had provoked Steinbeck’s writing personality to take over from his host personality (the “author”), whom the writing personality had always resented for taking undeserved credit, then it would make more sense.

Have I explained the silly with the far-fetched? I just happened upon the above quotation online, but I plan to read Steinbeck later this year.

“Les Misérables” by Victor Hugo (post 10): Does Jean Valjean starve himself to death, erasing sin by refusing to eat loaf of bread he had stolen?

No medical cause of death is given, but Jean Valjean had not been eating.

Just as Javert’s sinner personality may have killed his saint personality, Jean Valjean’s saint personality may have killed his sinner personality.

Please see previous nine posts regarding multiple personality in the narrator, Jean Valjean, Thénardier, Marius, and Cosette.

“Les Misérables” by Victor Hugo (post 9): Is Javert’s suicide an internal homicide by an alternate personality?

Police inspector Javert is an unusual personality. Many policemen and detectives in novels are known for bending the rules. In contrast, Javert never bends the rules. He is narrowly specialized in being “irreproachable” (1, p. 1142).

And as discussed in yesterday’s post, alternate personalities, per se, are typically specialized. Thus, in that regard, Javert doesn’t seem like a whole person, but more like an alternate personality.

I have often mentioned the fact that when nonpsychotic people hear rational voices in their head, it may be voices of alternate personalities. And Javert does hear a voice: “…in the depths of his mind he had heard a voice, a strange voice crying to him…” (1, p. 1141).

And when Javert had recently released Jean Valjean from his custody, he had not been aware of any intention to do so: “It was in some sort without his knowledge that his hand had opened and released him” (1, p. 1142). Something within him had had a will of its own. Moreover, “without his knowledge” may even imply a multiple personality memory gap.

In short, Javert “was not sure of being himself” (1, p. 1143). 

Why does he commit suicide? Is it that his regular personality has been freaked out by what his alternate personality has been saying in his head and doing with his prisoner? Or is his alternate personality so fed up with the rule-bound regular personality that it finally couldn’t take any more and killed him? In clinical, multiple personality disorder, so-called “internal homicides” sometimes do happen.

1. Victor Hugo. Les Misérables [1862]. New York, Modern Library, 1992.

Alternate Personalities: Multiple Personality was renamed Dissociative Identity to make it clear that alternate personalities are not other people

In the fourth edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic manual (DSM-IV, 1994), multiple personality disorder was renamed dissociative identity disorder. The problem with the old name was that “multiple personality” had made it sound like there were multiple people, which had never been implied. The alternate personalities had never been conceived of as other people, but only as subdivisions of one person, who is dissociated or divided.

I am prompted to reiterate this history, because some readers of yesterday’s post may have thought it strange that I referred to Marius and Cosette of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables as having alternate personalities that were specialized in being in love. The fact is, all alternate personalities are specialized in one thing or another.

The least obviously specialized personality is the host personality, which is designed to appear like a regular, whole person and to deal with the public. In novelists, this is often the personality who does interviews, but who is not one of the more specialized personalities who actually wrote the novel. I think it was Margaret Atwood who said that in interviews you hardly ever meet the personality who actually wrote the book.

There are two reasons that I usually use the old name, “multiple personality.” First, it is still much more familiar to most people than “dissociative identity.” Second, “multiple personality” better captures the subjective experience of meeting alternate personalities. They seem like people in their own right, in part because they see themselves that way.

“Les Misérables” by Victor Hugo (post 8): Marius and Cosette are lover-specialized alternate personalities, with definitive feature of memory gaps

In the last post, I inferred that when Marius and Cosette did not exchange names until the very end of their hour-long intimate conversation, they were acting like alternate personalities. Since some readers may have doubted that opinion, Victor Hugo provides more definitive evidence.

“Strange to say, in the kind of symphony in which Marius had been living since he had seen Cosette, the past, even the most recent, had become so confused and distant to him that what Cosette told him satisfied him fully. He did not even think to speak to her of the night adventure at the Gorbeau tenement, the Thénardiers, the burning, and the strange attitude and singular flight of her father [Jean Valjean]. Marius had temporarily forgotten all that; he did not even know at night what he had done in the morning, nor where he had breakfasted, nor who had spoken to him…he existed only during the hour in which he saw Cosette” (1, pp. 873-874).

Readers who are new to this site, and do not have even the most basic knowledge of multiple personality, will misinterpret the above passage as merely a romantic exaggeration of how enraptured they were. But what is being described is that the two lovers, per se, were lover-specialized alternate personalities, with amnesia for anything other than their specialized interest. Perhaps the author had had that kind of alternate personality when he had been in love.

1. Victor Hugo. Les Misérables [1862]. New York, Modern Library, 1992.

“Les Misérables” by Victor Hugo (post 7): Only at very end of hour-long, extremely intimate conversation, do Marius and Cosette exchange names

“Gradually they began to talk. Overflow succeeded to silence, which is fulness. The night was serene and splendid above their heads. These two beings, pure as spirits, told each other all their dreams, their frenzies, their ecstasies, their chimeras, their despondencies, how they had adored each other from afar, how they had longed for each other, their despair when they ceased to see each other. They confided to each other in an intimacy of the ideal, which even now nothing could have increased, all that was most hidden and mysterious of themselves. They related to each other, with a candid faith in their illusions, all that love, youth and that remnant of childhood was theirs, suggested to their thought. These two hearts poured themselves out into each other, so that at the end of an hour, it was the young man who had the young girl’s soul and the young girl who had the soul of the young man. They inter-penetrated, they enchanted, they dazzled each other.

“When they had finished, when they had told each other everything, she laid her head upon his shoulder, and asked him:

“ ‘What is your name?’

“ ‘My name is Marius,’ said he. ‘And yours?’

“ ‘My name is Cosette’ ” (1, p. 814).

1. Victor Hugo. Les Misérables [1862]. New York, Modern Library, 1992.

Comment

Within the framework of ordinary psychology, it would be plausible for two persons to see each other across a crowded room at a large social gathering, fall in love at first sight, and get the opportunity to exchange names only at the very end of the night. But it would not be plausible for two persons to wait to exchange names only at the very end of an intimate, self-revealing, hour-long conversation.

So what could explain the passage quoted above?

These two characters are being treated, not as real persons, but as alternate personalities. As I’ve explained in a number of past posts, it is only in multiple personality that namelessness is commonly found, or that personalities who do have names may reserve their names to be the last thing about themselves that they will divulge.

The multiple personality way of thinking about names is apparently ordinary psychology for this author.

Studies at King’s College London support validity of multiple personality: Does this mean that visits to this site from the UK will increase?

Considering the large number of UK writers discussed at this site in the past six years, the number of visitors from the UK has been minimal. I have joked that the UK has a greater belief in ghosts than in alternate personalities.

And as a psychiatrist, I know from articles it used to publish, that the British Journal of Psychiatry had been more than skeptical of the diagnosis.

So I am pleasantly surprised that King’s College London (1) has been studying multiple personality in recent years, with positive results (2, 3).

Their being able, with brain imaging (3), to distinguish the brains of people with and without multiple personality disorder does not necessarily apply to the brains of people with milder, nonclinical, multiple personality trait. But if it did apply, I would not be surprised. For the brains of people with genius are probably different from the brains of people without genius, in some slight but crucial way.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King's_College_London

2. https://www.kcl.ac.uk/ioppn/news/records/2016/may/multiple-personality-disorder-may-be-rooted-in-traumatic-experiences

3. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-of-psychiatry/article/aiding-the-diagnosis-of-dissociative-identity-disorder-pattern-recognition-study-of-brain-biomarkers/DCF85A7D69652C06E61524593B266E8C

“Les Misérables” by Victor Hugo (post 6): Narrator reminds reader that protagonist, Jean Valjean, has dual personalities, “two knapsacks”

Earlier (see previous posts), the narrator described Jean Valjean as becoming “separated from himself” and as having internal dialogues. Now, the narrator reminds the reader that Jean Valjean has a dual personality:

“Jean Valjean had this peculiarity, that he might be said to carry two knapsacks; in one he had the thoughts of a saint, in the other the formidable talents of a convict. He helped himself from one or the other as occasion required” (1, p. 398).

Victor Hugo could have simply said that this saintly person still retained the skills he had learned as a convict. But, instead, after emphasizing the “peculiarity” of what he is about to say, he uses the metaphor of “two knapsacks,” by which he means that the saint and the convict are two distinct, but readily accessible, personalities.

1. Victor Hugo. Les Misérables [1862]. Trans. Charles E. Wilbour. New York, The Modern Library, 1992.

“Les Misérables” by Victor Hugo (post 5): In metafictional interlude, “the author of this book” speaks of himself in third-person and first-person plural

“Many years have already passed since the author of this book, who is compelled, reluctantly, to speak of himself, was in Paris. Since then, Paris has been transformed. A new city has arisen, which to him is in some sense unknown. He need not say that he loves Paris; Paris is the native city of his youth…If after times, when we are there no longer…that we miss…which we see no more…and we love…and call them up…such as they were…

“Permit us, then, to speak of the past in the present. Saying which, we beg the reader to take note of it, and we proceed” (1, p. 389).

When a person speaks of himself in both third-person and first-person plural, it may imply three personalities. Third-person implies two personalities, the one speaking and the other one he refers to. Then first-person plural implies a different perspective, that of a third personality, who refers collectively to himself plus the other two. But the precise number of personalities is not the issue. Any number more than one is multiple personality.

Why didn’t the author simply use first-person in this metafictional interlude? Is he flaunting his multiple personality? Or is it just that these particular personalities always work as a team, and “team” has no “I” in it (an old sports joke).

1. Victor Hugo. Les Misérables [1862]. Trans. Charles E. Wilbour. New York, The Modern Library, 1992.

Added later: My idea that the author or narrator has more than one personality may be supported by what seems to be confusion about the narrative perspective in opinions which I just found online. The most common opinion is that the narration is third-person omniscient, which I can understand, because there are long stretches in which the narrator makes no self-reference. But that doesn't account for the times, as I've previously mentioned, that the narrator refers to himself in first-person plural ("we"), and the one occasion so far in which he refers to himself in first-person singular. I also found some commentary which disputed that the narrator was omniscient, in that sometimes he seemed to be, but other times he didn't. 

“Les Misérables” by Victor Hugo (post 4): “Double nature”—a Jekyll/Hyde dual personality—unnecessarily attributed to minor character

“Thénardier was one of those double natures who sometimes appear among us without our knowledge, and disappear without ever being known, because destiny has shown us but one side of them. It is the fate of many men to live thus half submerged. In a quiet ordinary situation, Thénardier had all that is necessary to make—we do not say to be—what passes for an honest tradesman, a good citizen. At the same time, under certain circumstances, under the operation of certain occurrences exciting his baser nature, he had in him all that was necessary to be a villain. He was a shopkeeper in which lay hidden a monster” (1, p. 368).

The narrator could simply have said this character pretended to be a decent fellow, but was really a monster at heart, which the reader already knew from his treatment of Cosette, anyway. So why make a general statement about psychology, and invoke the particular concept of “double nature”? It was evidently a kind of psychology in which the author was interested.

1. Victor Hugo. Les Misérables [1862]. Trans. Charles E. Wilbour. New York, The Modern Library, 1992.

“Les Misérables” by Victor Hugo (post 3): Narrator (still using “we”) thinks everyone hears rational voices who speak to them in quotable dialogues

Years later, Jean Valjean, now with a different name and identity, is a successful businessman and virtuous mayor. Police inspector Javert suspects his true identity. But a man in another city is misidentified as Jean Valjean and will probably go to prison in his place.

Should the real Jean Valjean step forward and save the misidentified man? He would lose everything, but satisfy his conscience.

Of interest here is the way his conscience manifests itself: as a personified, independent-minded voice in his head.

“…he resumed this sober dialogue, in which it was himself who spoke and himself who listened…

“It is certain that we talk with ourselves; there is not a thinking being who has not experienced that…” (1, pp. 196-197).

But only people with multiple personality hear rational voices who converse with them to this extent:

“At that moment, it seemed to him that he heard a voice crying within him: ‘Jean Valjean!’ ‘Jean Valjean!'

“His hair stood on end; he was like a man who hears some terrible thing.

“…‘Applaud yourself! So it is arranged, it is determined, it is done. Behold a man, a graybeard who knows not what he is accused of, who has done nothing, it may be, an innocent man, whose misfortune is caused by your name, upon whom your name weighs like a crime who will be taken instead of you; will be condemned, will end his days in abjection and horror! very well. Be an honored man yourself. Remain, Monsieur Mayor, remain honorable and honored, enrich the city, feed the poor, bring up the orphans, live happy, virtuous, and admired, and all this time while you are here in joy and in the light, there shall be a man wearing your red blouse, bearing your name in ignominy, and dragging your chain in the galleys! Yes! this is a fine arrangement! Oh, wretch!’ ” (1, pp. 203-204).

1. Victor Hugo. Les Misérables [1862]. Trans. Charles E. Wilbour. New York, The Modern Library, 1992.

Good Possession vs. Bad Possession: Since ancient times, in both religion and the arts, being “possessed” (having multiple personality) can be a good thing

In the New Testament, there are two kinds of possession. There is good possession by the Holy Spirit. And there is bad possession by unclean spirits or demons.

In the arts, since antiquity, there has been good possession by one of the inspirational goddesses, called Muses, or by the artist’s personal muse.

In psychological terms, what used to be thought of as possession is now understood as multiple personality. And what used to be thought of as spirits or muses are now understood to be alternate personalities.

Novelists are possessed by both good and bad spirits (alternate personalities), enabling novels to have both heroes and villains.

Search “possession” for previous discussions.

“Les Misérables” by Victor Hugo (post 2): Jean Valjean, the main character, undergoes an internal struggle and becomes “separated from himself”

In the first hundred pages, the narrator continues to refer to himself as “we,” except for one instance of “I” (1, p. 75), without explanation.

Jean Valjean, the main character, is introduced (1, p. 55). He is a 46-year-old man, who has just been released after nineteen years of brutal imprisonment for stealing a loaf of bread. His yellow passport will ensure perpetual persecution by society, against which he feels violent hate.

However, he encounters the good Bishop Bienvenu, whose respectful, kindly treatment evokes a countervailing attitude in Jean Valjean, so that “…a gigantic and decisive struggle had begun between…wickedness and…goodness…One thing was certain…he was no longer the same man…and was already so far separated from himself…He veritably saw this [wicked] Jean Valjean, this ominous face, before him. He was on the point of asking himself who that man was, and he was horror-stricken by it…He beheld himself then, so to speak, face to face…Where did he go? Nobody ever knew” (1, pp. 97-99).

Has the brutalized, wicked Jean Valjean been replaced by a good personality? Will the narrator continue to discuss radical, personal dividedness, and the switching between alternate personalities, in spiritual terms only? On the back cover, Hugo is quoted as calling this novel “a religious work.”

1. Victor Hugo. Les Misérables [1862]. New York, The Modern Library, 1992.

“Les Misérables” by Victor Hugo: Narrator refers to himself as “we.” What is the reason for this nosism?

For example, the narrator says, “We must confess…” (1, p. 21).

And I suppose the usual explanation would be literary convention. Did most narrators of 19th-century French novels refer to themselves in the plural? I don’t know, but even if they did, why did they do it?

There are two reasons usually given for nosism (2). One is that the person is grander than the ordinary individual and represents many people, as in the royal or editorial “we.” Another purpose is to make the audience feel included, as when a writer seeks to engage the reader. But “We must confess” seems to be about the narrator, personally.

Is the narrator plural, in the sense of having multiple personality trait? As I continue to read, I will see if there is anything further to support that, or any related, possibility.

Les Misérables, which I have just started, is daunting in length, 1260 pages (1). And I don’t know whether I will see it through or how long it will take. But, so far, I am encouraged by the way it is written.

1. Victor Hugo. Les Misérables [1862]. Translated by Charles E. Wilbour. New York, The Modern Library, 1992.

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosism

“The Good Soldier” by Ford Madox Ford (post 2): Narrator claims “a silent listener,” infers “a dual personality,” and has trouble controlling characters

For whom do novelists write? They write primarily to suit themselves, and secondarily to suit readers. Where are the readers? Out in the world somewhere. The one place with no readers is the room where the novelist is writing. Please read the following with that in mind:

“I have, I am aware, told this story in a very rambling way so that it may be difficult for anyone to find their path through what may be a sort of maze. I cannot help it. I have stuck to my idea of being in a country cottage with a silent listener, hearing between the gusts of the wind and amidst the noises of the distant sea, the story as it comes. And when one discusses an affair—a long, sad, affair—one goes back, and one goes forward” (1, p. 143).

Thus, the story is not being told via the written novel to readers out in the world somewhere, but to “a silent listener” in the same room. But how can there be two persons in a room that has only one person, the writer? The only way would be for the writer to have multiple personality.

Is there any other evidence that the narrator has multiple personality? Yes, he infers it about himself, twice: “It is as if one had a dual personality…” (1, p. 85). “I suppose that my inner soul—my dual personality…” (1, p. 96).

As to why the narrator tells the story in such “a very rambling way,” in which he goes back and forth in time, he says “…I cannot help it. It is so difficult to keep all these people going” (1, p. 169). That is, the narrator gets much of the story from the characters themselves, but they are not continuously available and completely cooperative, which means they have a degree of independence that would make them alternate personalities.

Comment

In my previous post, I raised the question of how this novel’s famous first line—“This is the saddest story I have ever heard.”—could be true. Perhaps the “silent listener” (see above) is expressing his opinion.

1. Ford Madox Ford. The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion [1915]. Oxford University Press, 2012.