Jules Verne and H. G. Wells: Both wrote Invisible-Man novels, but only Wells explicitly denied having his own “double personalities” (Multiple Personality)

—The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells (1897)

—The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz (1897, but released posthumously)

And if you count Verne’s character Captain “Nemo” (Latin for “nobody”), Verne was first to think in terms of a hidden personality, as most alternate personalities in multiple personality usually are, when “inside” and not “out."

Search “H. G. Wells” in this blog for his explicit denial of "double personalities.” 

Question: Did Wells explicitly deny having multiple personality, because novelists were thought to have it unless stated otherwise?

“The Devil’s Treasure” by Mary Gaitskill: A past post to read instead

I was going to read Gaitskill’s new book, The Devil’s Treasure: A Book of Stories and Dreams (1), in which she discusses her previous books in the context of her own life. But if you, like me, don’t have the time and patience to read it at this time, I offer a copy of my interesting past post about one of Gaitskill’s previous books, Two Girls, Fat and Thin (2):

post from 2017

“Two Girls, Fat and Thin” by Mary Gaitskill: Two women who were sexually abused in childhood now have multiple personality, but it is unacknowledged. 

Dorothy (fat) and Justine (thin) are two young women who had been sexually abused in childhood (2, pp. 26-27). This psychological novel depicts its aftereffects.

Since the association between childhood sexual abuse and multiple personality is well known, the following questions should be in the mind of any reader: Will the characters have signs of multiple personality? If so, will these signs be labelled as such by a narrator or character? Or will these signs be unacknowledged? (Most multiple personality in novels is unacknowledged.)

Dorothy

“The boundaries of my inner world—[when a person’s alternate personalities are not ‘out,’ they are nevertheless conscious, and are living in the person’s ‘inner world’]—did not extend out, but in, so that there was a large area of blank whiteness starting at my external self and expanding inward until it reached the tiny inner province of dazzling color and activity that it safeguarded, like the force field of clouds and limitless night sky that surrounded the island of Never-Never Land” (2, p. 111). [See posts on J. M. Barrie.]

“Those dinner tribunals occurred with such frequency that I developed the ability to divide myself while they occurred; the external person who sat and cried while her father reviled her and the internal person who helped herself to more salad as he ranted, and noticed that the scalloped potatoes were particularly succulent tonight” (2, p. 117).

[Following her father’s sexual abuse the night before, she has had a multiple personality type of memory gap, a dissociative fugue, in which she finds herself somewhere else, without memory of how she got there:] “I became conscious again as I sat in study hall the next day before a pile of books” (2, p. 124).

“She said, ‘Oh, wait, you haven’t told me—what is your name? I mean your real name, not the one your parents gave you.’ And I said, ‘Dorothy. Dorothy Never’ ” (1, p. 183). [“Dorothy Never,” as in Never-Never Land, is not the character’s real name, but is evidently the name of an alternate personality.]

[Told her duties as a secretary] “I wanted to cry, I can’t do it! I can’t! But fast after this feeling came another, a deep dark surge of ‘Oh yes you can’ that seemed to come from my lower body…It was a proud, stubborn, angry feeling that made me picture a harsh thin-lipped mouth setting itself in determination. My will, usually wandering my body in various pieces…After the first few hours had passed, my frayed perception forked into two—one navigating the landscape of words, phrases, and ideas, the other absorbing the sounds, inflections, and tonal habits of the voices” (2, p. 201).

“It was as if I had divided into two people: one hungrily embracing the dangerous world of emotional contact and power play, enjoying the game of move, counter move, the unpredictable changes of feelings, the other a terrified child unable to bear the carnivorous spirit of this world, weeping with fear at the sight of adults savagely copulating on their beds, on desks, in elevators” (2, p. 268).

“A voice of reason coughed nervously and interjected that perhaps I had misinterpreted the message of her eyes. But I had not!…I felt like there was an animal trapped in my lower body, pacing furiously, wanting to come out and tear the nearest living creature to pieces” (2, p. 287).

“The chattering voices [of various alternate personalities] in my head stopped, confused…The voices lunged forward, all talking at once, knocking each other down and climbing over each other to explain” (2, p. 295).

Justine

“A tough little person [child-aged alternate personality] within her rose and asserted itself” (2, p. 101).

“She remembers a strange thing she said one night at the dinner table, without knowing why she said it. Her mother asked her how school had been that day, and, recalling a study hall conversation, she answered, ‘Sally Hinkel is going to fuck Jim Thorn tonight.’ Her father’s eyes opened in alarm, her mother’s mouth opened in mid-bite…” (2, p. 139). [An alternate personality had spoken up, inappropriately.]

“One part of her stepped forward like a first grader in a starched dress with her hands clasped behind her back…and yet another part of her tried to puzzle out why she was talking to this prick…” (2, p. 193).

“The child Justine [one of her child-aged personalities] pouted flirtatiously as he eyed her” (2, p. 243).

“Even the rampaging child [another child-aged personality] paused, wondering” (2, p. 248).

[Child-aged alternate personalities are the most common kind, since multiple personality starts in childhood, and such personalities are often frozen in time.]

“Justine pressed her face into the floor [as an adult, she is, at her own request, engaging in a sadomasochistic scene], rubbing her cheek against the porous smelly wood, trying to scrape through her drunkenness. Blackness roared around her; she could barely feel the welts rising on her back. Her knees hurt, she thought. He beat her as she squirmed on the floor, caught in the steel trap that had closed on her when she was five years old. The upper strata of her thoughts and feelings had ruptured, and the creature long trapped beneath [an alternate personality] was out and gnawing her with its teeth” (2, p. 270). [This passage connects her adult interest in sadomasochism with her child abuse at age five and its resulting alternate personalities.]

Comments

Both of this novel’s two main characters had a history of child abuse, and now have manifestations of alternate personalities. However, since there is no narrator or character who labels it as multiple personality, per se, its presence in the novel seems to be unintentional, and may reflect the author’s own psychology.

Most reviewers of this novel completely missed these issues, but they should not have: When a psychological novel’s set-up is two main characters, both with histories of child abuse, reviewers should stop to consider the implications (multiple personality).

1. Mary Gaitskill. The Devil’s Treasure. New York, McNally Editions, 2023.

2. Mary Gaitskill. Two Girls, Fat and Thin. New York, Poseidon Press, 1991. 

Jules Verne: Captain Nemo character (2) as author’s tricky alternate personality

“Nemo” is a name derived from the Latin for “nobody.”  And “Nobody” is a favorite trick name used by persons with multiple personality: 

“When the therapist inquires as to who in the [person’s] system [of personalities] is responsible for some behavior, he or she will be told “No one.” So the therapist should be prepared to inquire whether there is a personality known as “No one,” “No name,” or “Nobody” (1, p. 117).

Search “Jules Verne” in this blog for past posts.

Comment: Jules Verne probably had multiple personality trait.

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

2.Wikipedia. “Captain Nemo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Nemo 

Blog’s Tenth Anniversary Statistic: Most Recent Visits From Singapore 

“The Lions of Lucerne” by Brad Thor: Author finally admits his use of italics means hearing voices, suggesting multiple personality trait

“Not now, a voice inside him said. Turn and let it burn. But it was so hard. Even though he was trained to be a master of his mind and emotions, he was still human” (1, p. 94).

Comment: In this novel, the author had already used italics at least ten times, but without previously acknowledging that it meant his character—and possibly, he, himself—heard voices, which, as discussed in past posts, probably means the author and his character had the high-functioning, creative version of multiple personality, multiple personality trait.

1. Brad Thor. The Lions of Lucerne. New York, Atria, 2002/2020. 

“The Tom Hanks Enigma” by David Gardner: Without Reading Hanks' 2023 Novel, Biographer is Puzzled

“Even now, close friends like Steven Spielberg and Meg Ryan admit they don’t truly know Tom. The only residue of the confused boy from Northern California remains in the silent reveries he can fall into even in a crowded room.

“It is like a switch being flicked in his head, taking him away from the present to somewhere no one…can reach.

“In those moments, Tom Hanks the movie star is gone. He’s little Tommy reaching for the pedals of his father’s car.

“Trying to see how far he can go” (1).

Comment: Hanks' new novel (2), which I’ve ordered, may indicate how his mind works. Does he have multiple personality trait like most novelists and some actors?

1. David Gardner. The Tom Hanks Enigma: The Biography of the World’s most Intriguing Movie Star. London, John Blake, 2007.

2. Tom Hanks. The Making of Another Motion Picture Masterpiece: A Novel. Knopf, 2023. 

“The Left Hand of Darkness” by Ursula K. Le Guin: Author’s most celebrated novel confirms her previously stated interest in multiple personality (2), but extensive literary analysis of the novel (3) ignores the issue

The protagonist says he was trying to distract himself in order to “shut up the interior voice that kept telling me, It has all gone wrong. When it would not be shut up I argued with it…” (1, p. 28).

Comment: A voice in your head that has sufficient independent agency—a mind of its own—to argue with you, is an alternate personality.

1. Ursula K. Le Guin. The Left Hand of Darkness [1969]. New York, Ace, 2019

2. Ursula K. Le Guin. The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination. Boston, Shambhala, 2004.

3. Wikipedia. “The Left Hand of Darkness.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Left_Hand_of_Darkness 

Prize-Winning Novelist Ursula K. Le Guin: Her Novels and Insight Into The Psychology of Fiction Writing

 

2023 NYTimes “The Essential Ursula K. Le Guin” https://www.nytimes.com/article/ursula-k-leguin-best-books.html

2015 Blog Post: Ursula K. Le Guin says: Most Novelists have “an uncomfortably acute sympathy for Multiple Personality” since that is how they experience their characters

“I think most novelists are aware at times of containing multitudes, of having an uncomfortably acute sympathy for Multiple Personality Disorder, of not entirely subscribing to the commonsense notion of what constitutes a self…

“Now, to trust the story, what does that mean? To me, it means being willing not to have full control over the story as you write it…Deliberate, conscious control…is invaluable in the planning stage—before writing—and in the revision stage—after the first draft. During the actual composition it seems to be best if conscious intellectual control is relaxed…Aesthetic decisions are not rational; they’re made on a level that doesn’t coincide with rational consciousness. Thus, in fact, many artists feel they’re in something like a trance state while working, and that in that state they don’t make the decisions…

“Whether they invent the people they write about or borrow them from people they know, fiction writers generally agree that once these people become characters in a story they have a life of their own, sometimes to the extent of escaping from the writer’s control and doing and saying things quite unexpected…They take on their own reality, which is not my reality, and the more they do so, the less I can or wish to control what they do or say…While writing, I may yield to my characters, trust them wholly to do and say what is right for the story…

“…I had a story to write when I found in my mind and body an imaginary person whom I could embody myself in, with whom I could identify strongly, deeply, bodily. It was so much like falling in love that maybe that’s what it was…for it’s an active, intense delight, to be able to live in the character night and day, have the character living in me…

“When I am working on a story that isn’t going to work, I make up people. I could describe them the way how-to-write books say to do…They don’t inhabit me, I don’t inhabit them. I don’t have them. They are bodiless. So I don’t have a story. But as soon as I make this inward connection with a character, I know it body and soul, I have that person, I am that person. To have the person (and with the person, mysteriously, comes the name) is to have the story…These people come only when they’re ready, and they do not answer a call…I have called this waiting ‘listening for a voice’…and then the voice…would come and speak through me. But it’s more than voice. It’s a bodily knowledge. Body is story; voice tells it” (1).

1. Ursula K. Le Guin. The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination. Boston, Shambhala, 2004. 

“Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded” by Samuel Richardson: Pamela, frightened, has three-hour memory gap, a dissociative reaction

Beautiful young Pamela, who has been writing letters to her parents, assuring them she will not succumb to her wealthy employer’s sexual harassment, is in the room of Mrs. Jervis, an older, protective, female employee, in the mansion where they both work, when their employer jumps out of the closet and harasses Pamela.

“I found his Hand in my Bosom, and when my Fright let me know it, I was ready to die; and I sighed, and scream’d, and fainted away…Pamela, Pamela! said Mrs. Jervis, as she tells me since…my poor Pamela is dead for certain!—And so, to be sure, I was for a time; for I knew nothing more of the Matter, one Fit following another, till about three Hours after, as it prov’d to be, I found myself in Bed, and Mrs. Jervis sitting up on one side…and no Master, for the wicked Wretch was gone. But I was so over joy’d, that I hardly could believe myself…Where have I been? Hush, my Dear, said Mrs. Jervis, you have been in Fit after Fit. I never saw any body so frightful in my Life!” (1, pp. 63-64).

Comment: Why did Pamela have a three-hour memory gap? Fear may make an experience hard to forget; whereas, a dissociative reaction may leave a person with a memory gap, a cardinal symptom of multiple personality (a.k.a. dissociative identity disorder). Will these issues be clarified in the rest of the novel?

1. Samuel Richardson. Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded [1740]. Oxford University Press, 2008.

Added Wed., Aug. 23: I lost interest and will not complete this novel.

Does Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi have multiple personality trait? If he misses his morning workout, “my wife tells me I become Evil Dara”

“Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has a strict 5:15 wake-up time and rarely misses a morning workout. ‘If I don’t exercise, my wife tells me I become Evil Dara,’ said Khosrowshahi, 54, who added that his runs and Peloton classes are like meditation for him. ‘I just beat the crap out of myself. If I’m thinking about my next gasp of breath, it makes me forget for a second about any worries that I have’ (1).

Comment: This blog contends that a high-functioning version of multiple personality—multiple personality trait—is surprisingly common. “My wife tells me” implies he has a memory gap for the time that his alternate personality came out, a cardinal symptom of multiple personality.

1. Lane Florsheim. “How Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi Avoids His ‘Evil’ Alter Ego.” https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/uber-ceo-dara-khosrowshahi-3ee8f97e

“The Nickel Boys” (post 2) by Colson Whitehead: Author’s probable multiple personality trait

“Whitehead has described the characters as ‘two different parts of my personality,’ with Elwood Curtis being ‘the optimistic or hopeful part of me that believes we can make the world a better place if we keep working at it,’ and Jack Turner, ‘the cynical side that says no—this country is founded on genocide, murder, and slavery and it will always be that way” (1).

“People get rid of plenty when they move—sometimes they’re changing not just places but personalities” (2, p. 138).

Comment: Different “Parts" and switching among different personalities are features of multiple personality trait.

1. Wikipedia. The Nickel Boys. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nickel_Boys

2. Colson Whitehead. The Nickel Boys. New York, Anchor Books, 2019.

“The Nickel Boys” (post 1) by Colson Whitehead:  A voice in the author’s head is acknowledged

“Later that afternoon as he chased a fat, buzzing fly around the store, Elwood thought there probably weren’t a lot of white kids in Tallahassee who studied at the college level. He who gets behind in a race must forever remain behind or run faster than the man in front” (1, pp. 39-40).

“I quote the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. a bunch; it was energizing to hear his voice in my head” (1, Acknowledgments, p. 212).

Comment: The author and/or his character, Elwood, hear a voice in their head, which was probably the voice of an alternate personality who quotes the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr: Search “italicized voices” in this blog for related past posts.

1. Colson Whitehead. The Nickel Boys. New York, Anchor Books, 2019.

Lying: Does Trump’s “Winner” alternate personality disavow losing?

Trump’s Georgia indictment focuses on his lies and lying (1). But why would an intelligent, sane man continually make provably false statements unless some part of him actually believed what he said? My hypothesis is that there is a part of him—an alternate personality I call “The Winner”—who cannot remember and/or believe things that are inconsistent with his being a winner.

I entertain this hypothesis for two reasons. First, I believe that most people with multiple personality are undiagnosed, because they have a relatively normal version of it and are high-functioning. Second, a textbook on multiple personality disorder (MPD) says that many people with MPD get reputations for being liars (2, pp. 78-79).

There are several reasons that persons with MPD might be seen as liars. The most common reason is that one personality will deny doing what other people have seen them do, because of amnesia for what another personality did. But another possible reason is that a personality will disavow things that are inconsistent with its self-image and world view; for example, a Winning-obsessed personality might disavow losing.

1. David French. “Trump’s Georgia Indictment.” https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/15/opinion/georgia-donald-trump-indictment-case.html

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

“Fourth Wing” by Rebecca Yarros: Protagonist, a scribe, quotes italicized voice in her head, hopes to ride dragons, and barely recognizes herself in the mirror

“Because you need saving, you fool" (1, p. 2).

“I barely recognize myself in the mirror. I look like a rider. I still feel like a scribe” (1, p. 8).

Comment: Search “italicized voices” and ”mirror” or “mirrors” for past posts on their relation to multiple personality. I have no past posts on dragons.

1. Rebecca Yarros. Fourth Wing. Shrewsbury, PA, Entangled Publishing Red Tower Books, 2023. 

“Twisted Love” (post 3) by Ana Huang: Alex’s Out-of-Character Singing May Allude to Famous Multiple Personality Literary Character, Trilby

Trilby was the title character of a famous novel (1) about a tone-deaf artists’ model who is hypnotized by Svengali and transformed into having a very different, alternate personality, by virtue of which she becomes a famous, superstar singer (1).

“…special performance. Please put your hands together for Alex Volkov…

“I realize this is quite a surprise, as a live performance wasn’t in the program tonight,” Alex said. "And if you know me, you know I’m not famous for my patronage of the arts—or my singing skills…I’m not the best at expressing my emotions. That’s why I’ve never liked singing. It’s all emotion, and it feels too vulnerable. I can’t stand it…"(2, pp. 311-317).

Comment: I don’t know if Ana Huang had ever read Trilby, but her suddenly making inartistic Alex into a publicly performing singer made me think of it as a literary allusion, and as an answer to my question in post 1 about setting the stage for multiple personality. Search “Trilby” in this blog.

1. Wikipedia. “Trilby.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilby_(novel)

2. Ana Huang. Twisted Love (Twisted Series, Book One). Naperville, Illinois, Bloom Books, 2022.

“Twisted Love” (post 2) by Ana Huang: Dissociative Disorder in Romance Novel

The same character who had amnesia for her personal history before age 9 (see post 1) now has rough sex, which she says she enjoys, but during which she forgets her own name:

“Did I fuck your brains out, my gorgeous slut? [her flirting lover asks].

“Considering I couldn’t remember my name, probably” (1, p. 170).

Comment: Dissociative amnesia (2) is related to multiple personality (a.k.a. dissociative identity disorder). But since the author has not mentioned either dissociative amnesia or multiple personality, it is up to readers to realize what they’re reading.

1. Ana Huang. Twisted Love (Twisted Series, Book One). Naperville, Illinois, Bloom Books, 2022.

2. Wikipedia. “Dissociative disorder.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_disorder 

“Twisted Love” (post 1) by Ana Huang: Opening May Set Stage for Multiple Personality

“Alex’s childhood had been even worse than ours" (1, p. 7): Multiple personality is typically a psychological defense against childhood trauma.

“I wasn’t a protector; I was a destroyer” (1, p. 20): Protectors and persecutors are two common types of alternate personalities.

“Part of me thought…, but another part…" (1, p. 31): Persons with undiagnosed multiple personality often refer to their alternate personalities as “parts.”

“I have a superior memory” (1, p. 34): In multiple personality, the regular or “host” personality often has memory gaps. But other personalities may have exceptionally good memory.

“…my memories were so twisted I remembered nothing before the age of nine, when the most horrible events of my life had occurred” (1, p. 39).

Comment: I don’t know if there will be any explicit multiple personality in this or subsequent novels in Ana Huang’s Twisted series. If there will be, then Book One has set the stage. If there won’t be, then I would call the above “gratuitous symptoms of multiple personality,” which probably reflect the author’s multiple-personality trait, a common asset of successful fiction writers.

1. Ana Huang. Twisted Love (Twisted Series, Book One). Naperville, Illinois, Bloom Books, 2022. 

“The Brothers Karamazov” by Fyodor Dostoevsky: Seemingly offhand description of puzzling, self-contradictory, multiple-personality trait

“But all his life, as a matter of fact, Fyodor Pavlovich was fond of playacting, of suddenly taking up some unexpected role right in front of you, often when there was no need for it, and even to his own real disadvantage, as, for instance, in the present case. This trait, however, is characteristic of a great many people, even rather intelligent ones…” (1, p. 11).

Comment: The above is what switching among alternate personalities may look like. However, since Fyodor Pavlovich, and many other persons with multiple personality, are “rather intelligent,” and realize people may find such behavior odd or even crazy, they may explain it away as merely joking or playacting.

1. Fyodor Dostoevsky. The Brothers Karamazov [1880]. Trans. by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. New York, Picador, 2021.