All Writers Are Out Of Their Tiny Little Minds

My first ever university seminar about Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, our tutor Vic Callaghan asked his first question; what is schizophrenia ?Needless to say we all looked somewhat confused. Nobody dared venture an answer.

Slowly Vic teased some answers from us and for fifty minutes or so we debated the topic. To be honest I think we all thought Vic was stark raving bonkers, either that or he or we were on the wrong course. This was an English Literature class, wasn’t it ? Then in the last ten minutes sly old Vic brought it all into line.

A writer, be it William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens or whoever, is really the only voice in his play or novel, but he or she uses it to give voice and character to multiple other personalities of his his or her own invention. However I think Vic was slightly adrift. The actual condition we ought to have discussed was D.I.D.

Dis-associative Identity Disorder is closer to the mark. Otherwise known as Multiple Personality Disorder it is a complex psychological condition (caused by some form of childhood trauma, some sort of abuse, be it emotional, or physical or sexual).

The point is it gives rise to multiple personalities, which is exactly what we find in works of fiction. Yet there is but one voice, that of the author. A few years ago some literary critic was writing about Hamlet and what sort of person he really was deep, deep down, as if Hamlet was a real living person. A renowned scholar had to point out to him that in fact Hamlet was one of a vast array of characters who were merely figments of the imagination of William Shakespeare.

And indeed, since very little is known about the bard himself, there has been what can only be described as collective speculation that Shakespeare himself is a figment of some others’ imagination. Who or what that some other constitutes is tantamount to entering the realms of cosmic surrealism. How far you want to go down that particular path is up to you.

I have a friend who was a writer for one of the longest running tv soap operas who once told me that the only difference between him and a victim of D.I.D. was that whilst he got paid handsomely for his condition (which included very long periods of speaking out loud to himself) the other got locked up in a mental institute. He had a point.

So are all writers madmen ? Probably yes. Let’s face it, you have to be a little crazy to be a writer. Locked inside a room all day on your own, talking to yourself, one minute pretending to be some young spotty faced kid, the next trying to convince yourself that you are in fact some wrinkly faced old hag, putting the spotty faced kid in his place.

Or how about the theory that the writer is in fact the voice and puppet master, a demigod controlling his creations to say and do what he wants them to say and do. Actually, he would also have to have a bit of the devil in him to explain some of the things his characters get up to. Now there’s a challenging debate to be had, some superior being being both god and the devil himself at one and the same time, ready and willing to transmute from one to the other on the whim of precociousness wafting through his superior mind.

Personally I quite like the idea that a writer is the medium through which we see the best and the worst of ourselves. He or she is a conduit through which all life energy, both positive and negative, is channeled. And if that makes me a madman, then so be it. Some of the things I have seen and heard in so called real life make me thank the lord I am a creative writer and not normal.