“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)