“Bleak House” (post 8) by Charles Dickens: Esther’s Conclusion

The last chapter of this novel is titled “The Close of Esther’s Narrative.” It begins:

“Full seven happy years I have been the mistress of Bleak House. The few words that I have to add to what I have written, are soon penned; then I, and the unknown friend to whom I write, will part for ever. Not without much dear remembrance on my side. Not without some, I hope, on his or hers” (1, p. 985).

Comment: It says that Esther, a character who evidently had a mind of her own—in essence, an alternate personality—was the principal writer of this novel, and that she communicated her part of the narrative to her friend, probably Charles Dickens, who, as the unnamed narrator, helped complete it.

This interpretation is based on the fact that, in real life, Dickens once confided in his friend and biographer, John Forster, that he didn’t invent his novels, but, in fact, after hearing and seeing them, wrote them down, as discussed in this blog’s first post: search “Dickens.”

You are entitled to disagree with this interpretation if you are a higher authority on Dickens than Dickens.

1. Charles Dickens. Bleak House [1853]. London, Penguin Books, 2003.

Window of Diagnosability in “Bleak House” (post 7) by Charles Dickens: Esther is acutely distressed when several of her personalities clash during a personal crisis

Multiple personalities are usually hidden even from the person herself, which is one reason that the diagnosis is usually missed except during a “window of diagnosability,” such as a personal crisis. Esther’s crisis is smallpox. Her personalities as a child, an older girl, and as a woman clash.

“While I was very ill, the way in which these divisions of time became confused with one another, distressed my mind exceedingly. At once a child, an elder girl, and the little woman I had been so happy as, I was not only oppressed by cares and difficulties adapted to each station, but by the great perplexity of endlessly trying to reconcile them. I suppose that few who have not been in such a condition can quite understand what I mean, or what painful unrest arose from this source” (1, p. 555).

1. Charles Dickens. Bleak House [1853]. London, Penguin Books, 2003.

“Bleak House” (post 6) by Charles Dickens: Why wasn’t Dickens embarrassed to admit (post 5) that he had copied a character?

Because—as I quoted (in a past post) Mark Twain as saying—novelists don’t “create” their characters: They usually experience their characters as coming TO them, not FROM them.

From where, then, do their characters usually come?

From the function of the brain that creates alternate personalities in multiple personality.

I don’t know how the brain does it. But when normal children have imaginary companions, it is practicing.

Added same day: When Esther Summerson in Bleak House recalled how in childhood she had confided in her "Dolly," the latter had been a semi-imaginary companion.

“Bleak House” (post 5) by Charles Dickens: Harold Skimpole, an adult character who insists he is a child, was said by Dickens to be based on a real person, Leigh Hunt, who apparently had multiple personality

“ ‘You’ll say it’s childish,’ observed Mr Skimpole, looking gaily at us. ‘Well, I daresay it may be; but I am a child, and I never pretend to be anything else’ ” (1, pp. 493-494).

In a letter of 25 September 1853, Dickens stated that Hunt had inspired the character of Harold Skimpole in Bleak House; "I suppose he is the most exact portrait that was ever painted in words! ... It is an absolute reproduction of a real man." A contemporary critic commented, "I recognized Skimpole instantaneously; ... and so did every person whom I talked with about it who had ever had Leigh Hunt's acquaintance” (2).

Comment: When an adult sometimes seriously insists that he is literally a child, he may be speaking from the point of view of his child-aged alternate personality. 

Added same day: So you should ask him, "How old are you?" A child-aged alter will usually have a serious, specific anwer.

1. Charles Dickens. Bleak House [1853]. London, Penguin Books, 2003.

2. Wikipedia. “Leigh Hunt.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leigh_Hunt 

“Bleak House” (post 4) by Charles Dickens: Esther Summerson’s nicknames are additional symptoms of “gratuitous multiple personality”

Esther Summerson’s multiplicity of nicknames include “Dame Durden” (1, pp. 138, 210, 215), “Mother Hubbard (1, p. 270), and “Mrs Shipton” (1, p. 271). Other writers have raised the issue of Esther’s nicknames, but I have not seen anyone raise the issue in relation to the only psychological condition which is known for a person’s having multiple names: multiple personality. Esther’s multiple names are more evidence that Dickens, for some unknown reason, has given this character symptoms of multiple personality (see prior posts).

I have no reason to think that Dickens intended to give Esther symptoms of multiple personality. Indeed, I think it was unintentional. In fact, my experience in reading for this blog has, years ago, led me to the conclusion that most symptoms of multiple personality in literature are not intended. My term for this is “gratuitous multiple personality,” which I have discussed in many past posts.

I infer that the reason for the surprisingly common occurrence of gratuitous symptoms of multiple personality in literature is that it reflects the psychology of many fiction writers, which I call “multiple personality trait” (as opposed to multiple personality disorder).

Please search both “Dickens” and "gratuitous multiple personality.”

1. Charles Dickens. Bleak House [1853]. London, Penguin Books, 2003. 

Added Feb. 17: These nicknames could be nothing more than clever conversational ways of noting Esther's attributes – motherly, perceptive, etc. — except for the fact that no other character has been continually accumulating nicknames.

Also, search "Hemingway nicknames."

“Bleak House” (post 3) by Charles Dickens: Esther addresses herself in third-person and has memory gap, both indicative of multiple personality

“…Mr Jarndyce called me into a small room next his bedchamber…‘My dear, how you are trembling!’

“I could not help it: I tried very hard: but being alone with that benevolent presence…I kissed his hand. I don’t know what I said, or even that I spoke. He was disconcerted, and walked to the window; I almost believed with the intention of jumping out, until he turned, and I was reassured by seeing in his eyes what he had gone there to hide. He gently patted me on the head, and I sat down.

“ ‘There! There! he said. ‘That’s over. Pooh! Don’t be foolish.’

“ ‘It shall not happen again, sir, I returned, ‘but at first it is difficult—

“ ‘Nonsense! he said. ‘It’s easy, easy. Why not? I hear of a good little orphan girl without a protector. She grows up…and I remain her guardian and friend. What is there in all this?…and I have before me thy pleasant, trusting, trusty face again.’

“I said to myself, ‘Esther, my dear, you surprise me! This really is not what I expected of you!’ (1, p. 117).

1. Charles Dickens. Bleak House [1853]. London, Penguin Books, 2003.

Comment: In the context of how Dickens, in his novel, Edwin Drood, was to use addressing oneself in the third person to mean the person had multiple personality, should the reader just shrug it off when he does the same thing in Bleak House more than once, first with Skimpole, now with Esther Summerson?

Moreover, “Esther, my dear, you surprise me! This really is not what I expected of you!” sounds like the words of an alternate personality that originated as an identification with someone who abused her in childhood.

And her memory gap as to what she said or even that she spoke is a cardinal symptom of multiple personality. 

“Bleak House” (post 2) by Charles Dickens: Dickens implies Mr Skimpole has multiple personality, like the murderer in The Mystery of Edwin Drood

“All this, and a great deal more, he told us, not only with the utmost brilliancy and enjoyment, but with a certain vivacious candor — speaking of himself as if he were not at all his own affair, as if Skimpole were a third person… (1, p. 90).

1. Charles Dickens. Bleak House [1853]. London, Penguin Books, 2003. 

Comment: In Dickens’s final novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Dickens planned to reveal to the reader that the murderer had multiple personality by having the murderer refer to himself in the third person. I discussed this in my first post of the blog in 2013: Search “Dickens.”

“Bleak House” (post 1) by Charles Dickens: Why does novel’s second narrator, Esther Summerson, introduce herself by saying she is “not clever”

“I have a great deal of difficulty in beginning to write my portion of these pages, for I know I am not clever…I used to say to my doll…‘Now, Dolly, I am not clever’ ” (1, p. 27).

Comment: Since people with multiple personality may know they have problems with memory gaps, which can be embarrassing, they may make excuses in advance. I don’t know if this will turn out to be the case with Esther Summerson, but I am struck by the odd way she introduces herself.

And I also wonder whether having two narrators in the same novel may reflect multiple personality in the fiction-writing process. How would you explain it?

1. Charles Dickens. Bleak House [1853]. London, Penguin Books, 2003. 

Added 5:50 p.m.:While not confirming the above speculation about Esther Summerson's possible multiple personality, a sentence at the end of chapter 4 does raise identity issues: "Lastly, it was no one, and I was no one" (1, p. 63).

“The Famished Road” by Ben Okri: Multiple Identities with Memory Gaps fulfill Diagnostic Criteria for Multiple Personality (Dissociative Identity)

“Sometimes I seemed to be living several lives at once…Often…voices spoke to me” (1, p. 7).

“When I awoke I felt as if my memory had been wiped clean” (1, p. 293).

Comment: The protagonist tries to understand his multiple personalities in terms of traditional African beliefs, which vary among ethnic groups. Did readers, the author, or Booker Prize judges know or care about these issues?

1. Ben Okri. The Famished Road. New York, Anchor/Doubleday, 1992.

“The Famished Road” by Ben Okri: Novel concludes with a view of human nature

“Many people reside in us…Human beings are a great mystery” (1, p. 499).

Since Ben Okri is human, he implies that many people reside in him, which he feels is a great mystery.

Comment: I don’t agree that everyone has many people (multiple personalities) in them, but I do believe it is more common among successful fiction writers than it is among the general public.

1. Ben Okri. The Famished Road. New York, Anchor/Doubleday, 1992.

“The Famished Road” by Ben Okri: For some readers, this Booker Prize-winning novel was “a long nightmare”

I still plan to finish the last third of this long, prize-winning, novel, but certain, seemingly trivial, omissions have begun to bother me.

The protagonist is a schoolboy. He has often mentioned having gone to school that day. But he is never described as going to and from school. He rarely or never socializes with friends from his neighborhood or school. And there have not been any scenes at his school.

He lives with his mother and father. But I don’t recall any other relatives in the story.

These seemingly trivial omissions are beginning to strike me as bizarre, not magical.

1. Sam Jordison. https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2011/jan/20/booker-club-famished-road

“The Famished Road” by Ben Okri: Should Author’s Cultural Background Override Protagonist’s Psychological Symptoms?

Two-thirds through this 500-page Booker Prize-winning novel (1), I am not yet clear about its cultural premises (Ben Okri was born in Nigeria), or whether the author’s cultural background should be more important than the protagonist’s psychological symptoms.

What kind of boy is the protagonist, Azaro? Is he an “Abiku” (3) or a “Spirit child”(4) and what do these African terms mean? Do they explain why, since early in the novel, Azaro has been hearing the voices of his “spirit companions”? Or should his hearing voices be interpreted psychologically, just like characters in any other novel?

I hope the final third of the novel helps me deal with these issues.

1. Ben Okri. The Famished Road. New York, Anchor/Doubleday, 1992.

2. John C. Hawley. “Ben Okri’s Spirit Child: Abiku Migration and Postmodernity.” https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/engl/70/

3. Wikipedia. “Abiku.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiku

4. Wikipedia. “Spirit Children.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_children

Authors, Fiction’s Psychological Source, Rarely Explain 

Feel Normal: Write Fiction

In a recent post, I quoted a novelist known for magic realism as saying he had actually had those kinds of weird, magical experiences.

The public acceptance of those works might have helped him to feel normal. 

“The Famished Road” Booker Prize-winning novel by Ben Okri (2): Quote on cover calls it “Something approaching a masterpiece of magic realism”

The novel opens with remarks that are suggestive, not of magic realism, but of multiple personality:

“Sometimes I seemed to be living several lives at once…Often, by night or day, voices spoke to me. I came to realize that they were the voices of my spirit companions” (1, p. 7).

And I have reason to doubt that “magic realism,” the literary technique of using magical thinking in a realistic context (3), is a valid concept, because Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a writer who was supposedly a major exponent of magic realism, said it was merely the kind of subjective experience that he was prone to have. He insisted on…

“…the direct relation between his own novels and his own life: ‘There’s not a line in any of my books which I can’t connect to a real experience. There is always a reference to a concrete reality.’ This is why he has always asserted that far from being a ‘magical realist,’ he is just a ‘poor notary’ who copies down what is placed on his desk” (4, p. 153).

So I expect that Ben Okri’s The Famished Road will have what looks like a literary technique (magic realism). But will it be a literary technique that he is using, or an imaginative kind of thinking that he is prone to have? I will see.

1. Ben Okri. The Famished Road. New York, Anchor/Doubleday, 1992.

2. Wikipedia.“Ben Okri.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Okri

3.Wikipedia. “Magic Realism.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_realism

4. Gerald Martin. Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Life. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2009.

“Elective Affinities” (post 3) by Goethe: Title may mean characters had minds of their own

This novel’s meaning has never been clear: “From the time of its publication to today, Goethe's novel, Die Wahlverwandtschaften (Elective Affinities, 1809), has aroused a storm of interpretive confusion” (Wikipedia) (1).

I suspect that Goethe chose the title, “Elective Affinities, when he found that his characters would do whatever they wanted or elected to do, consistent with the study of fiction writers and their characters by Marjorie Taylor (2).

1. Wikipedia. “Elective Affinities.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elective_Affinities

2. Marjorie Taylor, et al. https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/blogs.uoregon.edu/dist/7/8783/files/2014/07/TaylorHodgesKohanyi-130mpe0.pdf

Alter Ego of World Champion: “When I’m fighting, I’m totally someone else”

“We all have our alter ego…I don’t like fights; I don’t like arguing,” she said. But when I’m in the gym, or when I’m training, when I’m fighting, I’m totally someone else.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/03/sports/amanda-serrano-erika-cruz-preview.html

Comment: There may not be any practical difference between that kind of "alter ego" and the alternate personality of multiple personality trait.

Added 10:15 a.m.: It would be interesting to know where her detailed memories of fights are stored: equally in the memory bank of her regular ego and of her alter ego, or mainly in the memory bank of her alter ego.

“Elective Affinities” (post 2) by Goethe: Two characters have identical handwriting, like alternate personalities who are merging in therapy

As I noted in post 1, the names of the four main characters are variations of each other, which is often seen in multiple personality among the alternate personalities. Further evidence of their being like alternate personalities is when the handwritings of two of them become identical.

“…how great was his [Eduard’s] astonishment when he ran his eyes over the final pages…‘That is my handwriting.’ He looked at Ottilie, and again at the pages. Especially the ending was exactly as if he had written it himself” (1, p. 81)…“the beginning in Ottolie’s childish and diffident hand…the ending…looked so much like his own” (1, p. 85).

Comment: Goethe uses Ottilie’s ability to mimic Eduard’s handwriting as evidence for the love between them. But in real life, the handwritings of lovers don’t become identical.

However, in therapy for multiple personality, if an attempt is made to merge two alternate personalities, their handwritings may become identical, to the extent that the merger is becoming successful.

1. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Elective Affinities [1809]. Trans. David Constantine. Oxford, Oxford University Press, UK, 1994/2008. 

“Two-Headed” Writers: Louisa May Alcott, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Roald Dahl

Because Roald Dahl became famous for both his very-adult short stories and his books for children, some critics thought of him as a “two-headed creature” (1, p.1), which would be the simplest form of multiple personality (but they didn’t use that term).

The reference to Dahl as “two-headed” reminds me of two other famous writers who were also self-divided. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is best known today as creator of the prototypically down-to-earth Sherlock Holmes, but during his lifetime Doyle also wrote “Gothic Tales” (search it) and was a public advocate for belief in spiritualism (fairies, etc.).

Louisa May Alcott is best known today as the author of Little Women, but she also wrote what she called her “blood and thunder” stories. Search “Alcott.”

And those are not the only writers who have had their heads in multiple genres, which entails multiple consciousness, also known as multiple personality.

1. Mark I. West. Roald Dahl. New York, Twayne Publishers, 1992.

“Elective Affinities” by Goethe: Opens with multiple personality-style naming of characters and talk of “unconscious memories” before Freud was born

The four main characters “have versions of the same name: the Captain is called Otto, Eduard was christened Otto but changed his name, and Charlotte and Ottilie share the syllable 'ott-'; and the name OTTO, composed of only two different letters, suggests a formula for the deep structure of human relationships” (1, p. 18).

Comment: It is not uncommon in multiple personality for the names of a person’s alternate personalities to be variations of one person’s name.

In the first chapter, Eduard and Charlotte discuss the advisability of having the Captain as a guest. Eduard tends to favor it. 'I am not superstitious,’ Charlotte replied, ‘and attach no importance to these vague promptings—if they were only that. But they are most often unconscious memories of fortunate and unfortunate consequences…(2, p. 8).

Comment: This novel was published fifty years before Freud was born, which underlines the fact that Freud did not discover “the unconscious” (search “Freud” and “the unconscious” for past posts).

1. Ritchie Robertson. Goethe: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford, Oxford University Press, UK, 2016.

2. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Elective Affinities [1809]. Trans. David Constantine. Oxford, Oxford University Press, UK, 1994/2008.