“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. 

“Renegade Wife,” a Romance novel by Barbara Heinlein, writing as B. J. Daniels: Characters have changing Personalities

“She couldn’t imagine…why she was having trouble remembering all but random moments from the party” (1, p. 8). [memory gaps may be a symptom of dissociative identity, a.k.a. multiple personality]

“If anything, she was more curious about who her husband had been, the real Lucian Beck—if there had been one” (1, p. 88). [She wonders if he had more than one identity.]

“Guess you knew a different man than I did. You sure his name was Lucian Beck?” (1, p. 96).

“That woman he’d kissed and who kissed him back felt as if it had been someone else. She barely remembered that other Geneva Carrington Beck, the one who was still married to Lucian (1 p. 121).

“Shaking his head, he said, “Were you always like this?

“No. I’m terrified of this woman Lucian has made me into” (1, p. 128).

“Lucian.” Geneva stared at the man who walked out of the pines toward her. It was just shy of a week since he’d left her, and yet she barely recognized him…She didn’t know this man. No doubt ever had…” (1, p. 141).

“Who was that woman who’d fired those shots? Not the Geneva Carrington Beck she’d known. This had changed her…She could never go back to being the person she was. Unfortunately, she couldn’t imagine where that left her. Or what she would do” (1, pp. 161-162).

Comment: Is there a psychological connection between the protagonist’s personality change and the author’s writing under a pseudonym? Both may reflect the author’s multiple personality trait.                                                                                                                                 

1. B. J. Daniels. Renegade Wife. Harlequin Intrigue, 2024. 

“Rose Cottage” by Mary Stewart (3): The italicized Voice in a character’s head, and division of a character’s mind into Parts are Gratuitous symptoms of multiple personality

1. Italicized Voice in Character’s Head

    “Home? I remember, I remember” (1, p. 64).

    “Take life easy.” (1, p. 218).

    “Take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree" (1, p. 233).

     Note: The voice has a consistent personality. Alternate personalities are often heard as a voice in the person’s head (2, p. 94).

2. Parts

   “Part of me longed for her coming, with a kind of uncertain excitement, but another part was afraid” (1, p. 181).

   “I had been listening to his story with only half my mind; the other half was outside there, in the car at the cottage gate” (1, p. 203).

Comments: Prior to their diagnosis of multiple personality, patients often refer to their alternate personalities as “parts” (2, p. 92). Symptoms of multiple personality are gratuitous in this novel, because no character is labeled as having multiple personality, and the symptoms may only reflect the author’s multiple personality trait (not disorder), which is probably an asset in writing novels.

1. Mary Stewart. Rose Cottage. Chicago Review Press, HarperCollins, 1997/2011. 

2. Frank W. Putnam, MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. New York, The Guilford Press, 1989.

3. Wikipedia. Mary Stewart (novelist). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Stewart_(novelist)

“Dark Prince” (1), a paranormal romance (2) by Christine Feehan: Mikhail, living in a world without women, is astonished to hear a woman’s voice in his head

“Mikhail Dubinsky…could no longer bear…the stark, raw loneliness of his existence…Mikhail, who had filled his life with art and philosophy, with work and science, knew the weapons of man and had learned to become a weapon himself…His people were a dying species…There were no women to continue their species…The males were essentially predators…For each it was necessary to find his missing half, the life-mate that would bring him forever into the light…"(1, pp. 1-2).

“The trouble is not really being alone, it’s being lonely…” [said a voice in his head].

“Curious, he replayed the words, listened to the voice. Female, young, matter-of-fact, highly intelligent.

“I have found it to be so,” he agreed.

“Who could speak telepathically other than one of his kind? Now hearing this voice, this voice of a human woman, he was astonished…

“How is it you can talk to me?” (1, p. 3).

Comment: Romance characters, reflective of Romance authors, as is true of literary characters and authors, may hear italicized voices in their head, possibly (probably) voices of undiagnosed alternate personalities, as discussed in many past posts.

1. Christine Feehan. Dark Prince (A Carpathian Novel), New York, Avon, 1999/2011.

2. Wikipedia. “Paranormal romance." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal_romance. 

“Fairy Tale” (post 2) a novel by Stephen King: Incidental remarks and details may reflect author’s multiple personality trait

“I think sometimes we know where we’re going even when we think we don’t” (1, p. 111). Comment: This may refer to the author’s intuition that an alternate personality may have known the rest of the story before his regular personality did.

“Doing that made the inside me feel absurd, like a little kid playing cowboy. The outside me was glad to have the weight of it, and knowing it was fully loaded" (1, p. 165). Comment: The “inside me” may mean a child-aged alternate personality and “outside me” may mean an adult alternate personality. Child-aged alternate personalities are common in multiple personality, because multiple personality usually begins in childhood.

“Part of me (one personality) wanted to eject the tape…But I (another personality) didn’t. Couldn’t. Trust me, Charlie. I’m depending on you” (1, p. 168). Comment: Italics often indicate a voice in the character’s head. Search “italics” in this blog for discussion of voices in past posts on other novels. Also search “parts,” a  common euphemism for alternate personalities.

Additional Comment: The protagonist has a stereotypical history of childhood trauma for a person who later develops multiple personality: His mother died when he was young and his father became an alcoholic. But a happy ending is quite possible.

1. Stephen King. Fairy Tale. New York, Scribner, 2022/2023. 

“Fairy Tale” (post 1) a novel by Stephen King: Protagonist has italicized thoughts, “only it didn’t seem like my thought at all.” How is it possible to both have, and not have, various thoughts?

“…I can’t leave her [the patient’s dog]. I’ll have to take her to the goddam hospital…” [says the patient].

“They won’t let you," I said. “You must know that.”

“Then I’m not going" [says the patient].

“Oh yes you are, I thought. And then I thought something else, only it didn’t seem like my thought at all. I’m sure it was, but it didn’t seem that way. We had a deal. Never mind picking up litter on the highway, this is where you hold up your end of it” (1, p. 26).

Comment: In this blog, search “italicized” to see past posts with examples from other novels. Novelists may or may not understand how a person or character can both have and not have particular thoughts. Undiagnosed, even unintentional, alternate personalities, make it possible. 

1. Stephen King. Fairy Tale. New York, Scribner, 2022/2023. 

“Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of The Dead" (post 3) by Olga Tokarczuk: Janina’s gratuitous symptoms of multiple personality in the rest of the novel

“But on the whole, from the time of my brief stay in custody I became very absentminded” (1, p. 219).

“I kept talking to myself and realized there was something wrong with me…I’d become pensive and would be lost in thought for hours at a time. I put down my keys in the garage, for instance, and couldn’t find them for a week” (1, p. 220).

“On several occasions, I seemed to hear other people’s thoughts” (1, p. 233).

“I could have been a pretty good writer. But at the same time I have trouble explaining my feelings and the motives of my behavior” (1, p. 249).

“I got home without being noticed. Once I was in the car I couldn’t remember a thing” (1, pp. 261-262).

“ But will you believe me when I say I didn’t do it entirely consciously? I instantly forgot what had happened, as if there were some powerful Defense Mechanisms protecting me. Perhaps I should ascribe it to my Ailments—quite simply, from time to time I was not Janina, but Bellona or Medea” (1, p. 262).

Comments: Gratuitous symptoms of multiple personality included memory gaps and alternate identities, possibly reflective of author's multiple personality trait.

1. Olga Tokarczuk. Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of The Dead. Trans. Antonia Lloyd-Jones., New York, Riverhead Books, 2009/2019.  

“Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of The Dead" (post 2) by Olga Tokarczuk: Protagonist-narrator lies to police (and reader) due to regular personality’s memory gap for threat by her angry alternate personality

“I knew that the Police like to have everything confirmed.

“Is it true that you behaved aggressively during the hunting here, in the locality?”

“I would say that I behaved angrily, not aggressively. There’s a difference. I expressed my Anger because they were killing Animals.”

“Did you make death threats?”

“Anger can prompt one to utter various words, but it can also make one fail to remember them afterward.”

“There are witnesses who have stated that you shouted, and I quote—‘I’ll kill you (obscenity), you’ll be punished for these crimes. You have no shame, you’re not afraid of anything. I’ll beat your brains out.’”

He read it dispassionately, which I found amusing.

"Why are you smiling?” asked the second one in a wounded tone.

“I find it comical that I could have said such things. I’m a peaceful person…” (1, p. 215).

Comment: In this blog, search “memory gaps” and “lying” for past posts on these recurrent issues in multiple personality.

1. Olga Tokarczuk. Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of The Dead. Trans. Antonia Lloyd-Jones., New York, Riverhead Books, 2009/2019.  

“Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of The Dead" (post 1) by Olga Tokarczuk: Words from an Alternate Personality

“No one was listening to me, but I went on with my speech. I couldn’t stop, because the words were coming to me from somewhere of their own accord…"(1, p. 105).

Comment: Words can seem to come to a person “of their own accord” only if there is something in their head with a mind of its own, which is the essence of an alternate personality.

1. Olga Tokarczuk. Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of The Dead. Trans. Antonia Lloyd-Jones., New York, Riverhead Books, 2009/2019.

“Midnight Fugue” (post 2) a novel by Reginald Hill: Novel’s diagnosis of character who runs away, and how the character describes his subjective experience when he returns

“State of fugue posited by medical experts” (1, p. 166).

“For a long time I was just a sackful of fragments trying to learn how to reassemble itself…I was in pieces. I didn’t just run away and hide from you, Gina [his wife]. I hid from myself…telling it straight isn’t easy because of the [memory] gaps (1. pp. 280-281).

Comment: A dissociative fugue is used as a plot device in this complex detective story, which is the last book in a 24-novel series.

1. Reginald Hill. Midnight Fugue. (A Dalziel & Pascoe Mystery). New York, Harper, 2009/2021.

“Midnight Fugue” (post 1) a novel by Reginald Hill: What is a Dissociative Fugue?

Back Cover: “Gina Wolfe has come to mid-Yorkshire in search of her missing husband…Is he in [a dissociative] fugue (3) or is he in flight [run away]?” (1).

Reginald Hill was a successful English novelist (2).

Agatha Christie had a famous, real-life disappearance in 1926 (4), probably a dissociative fugue.

1. Reginald Hill. Midnight Fugue. (A Dalziel & Pascoe Mystery). New York, Harper, 2009/2021.

2. Wikipedia. Reginald Hill. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reginald_Hill

3. Wikipedia. Dissociative Fugue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_fugue

4. Wikipedia. “Agatha Christie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha_Christiehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha_Christie

Comment: In this blog, search “Flitcraft’s Fugue” for a post on the story of a dissociative fugue in The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. 

“On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing” by Elena Ferrante: She distracts her brain so her “many other I’s” can take over

“…I am waiting for my brain to get distracted, to slip up, for other I’s—many—outside the margins to join together, take my hand, begin to pull me with the writing where I’m afraid to go, where it hurts me to go, where, if I go too far, I won’t necessarily know how to get back (1, p. 34).

Comment: “Many I’s” is an informal way to say nonpathological multiple personality, (a.k.a. dissociative identity), what I call “multiple personality trait.” Do Ferrante’s most avid readers have many I’s, too?

1. Elena Ferrante. In the Margins: On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing. Trans. Ann Goldstein. New York, Europa Editions, 2022. 

“My Brilliant Friend” (post 4) by Elena Ferrante: Of the two main characters—Elena (first-person narrator) and Lila—which one is the title’s “brilliant friend”?

—Wikipedia describes the novel’s beginning—

“To everyone's surprise, the very rebellious Lila turns out to be a prodigy who has taught herself to read and write. She quickly earns the highest grades in the class, seemingly without effort. Elena is both fascinated and intimidated by Lila, especially after Lila writes a story which Elena feels shows real genius. She begins to push herself to keep up with Lila” (1).

—But toward the end of the novel itself—

“I [Elena] gave a nervous laugh, then said [to Lila] ‘Thanks, but at a certain point school is over.’

‘Not for you: you’re [Elena] my brilliant friend, you have to be the best of all, boys and girls” (2, p. 312).

Comment: Is “Elena” the author’s regular personality, while “Lila” is one of Elana’s genius, story-teller, alternate personalities? But the author’s system of alternate personalities is probably more complex, including both males and females.

1. Wikipedia. “My Brilliant Friend.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Brilliant_Friend

2. Elena Ferrante. My Brilliant Friend. Trans. Ann Goldstein. New York, Europa Editions, 2011/2024. 

“My Brilliant Friend” (post 3) by Elena Ferrante: Metaphors suggestive of undiagnosed multiple personality

“Lila was malicious: this, in some secret part of myself, I still thought…But if it was a childish self that unleashed these thoughts in me, they had a foundation of truth” (1, p. 143).

Comment: The regular personality of most people does not think that the person has a “secret part” or “childish self.” It is the “regular" or “host” personality of the person with undiagnosed multiple personality who tends to infer that the person has hidden “parts” (alternate personalities) (2, p. 92). And a common type of alternate personality is child-aged, because multiple personality usually begins in childhood.

1. Elena Ferrante. My Brilliant Friend. Trans. Ann Goldstein. New York, Europa Editions, 2011/2024.

2. Frank W. Putnam, MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. New York, The Guilford Press, 1989. 

“My Brilliant Friend” (post 2) by Elena Ferrante: Author switches from “multiple personality” perspective to “dissociative identity” perspective

Comment:The psychiatric condition that used to be called “multiple personality” changed its official psychiatric name to “dissociative identity,” but both names are useful, depending on the circumstances. I used the older term in post 1, because the character, Elena, implied that she did not feel that her regular personality was always in full control of her actions. But years later, in 1958, her brilliant friend, Lila, had her first episode of “dissolving margins.” Lila said that on those occasions “the outlines of people and things suddenly dissolved, disappeared” (1, p. 89).

Elena Ferrante is well-known for having hidden her true name. The beginning of this novel suggests that multiple personality (a.k.a. dissociative identity) may have been involved. Of course, her very high-functioning suggests it would be what I call a “trait,” not a disorder or mental illness.

1. Elena Ferrante. My Brilliant Friend. Trans. Ann Goldstein. New York, Europa Editions, 2011/2024. 

“My Brilliant Friend” (post 1) by Elena Ferrante: Elena, the protagonist, inadvertently suggests she’d always had Multiple Personality

“I always felt slightly detached from my own actions” (1, p. 34).

Comment: She’s always had a subtle subjective sense that there was other personal consciousness within her that had independent agency regarding her actions, a sense shared by most novelists (2).

1. Elena Ferrante. My Brilliant Friend. Trans. Ann Goldstein. New York, Europa Editions, 2011/2024.

2. Marjorie Taylor, Sara D. Hodges, Adèle Kohányi. “The Illusion of Independent Agency: Do Adult Fiction Writers Experience Their Characters as Having Minds of Their Own?” Imagination, Cognition and Personality, Vol. 22(4) 361-380, 2002-2003.

https://pages.uoregon.edu/hodgeslab/files/Download/Taylor%20Hodges%20Kohanyi_2003.pdf 

“You Can’t Go Home Again” by Thomas Wolfe: Gratuitous Symptoms of Multiple Personality are Not Found, Suggesting Author Lacked Multiple Personality Trait

Comment: Either Thomas Wolfe did not have the creative asset of “multiple personality trait,” which past posts in this blog have found in about ninety percent of the novels I’ve discussed, or the symptoms may be present in his other works, but not in this one.

I may read more by and about Thomas Wolfe in the future, but I want to publish this negative finding now to make the point that the things I look for in this blog are not so common that they can always be found, even if the novel is about six-hundred pages like this one (1).

1. Thomas Wolfe. You Can’t Go Home Again. New York, Scribner, 1934/1990.