XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: hayesstw@telkomsa.net   
      
   On Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:49:52 +0000 (UTC), Lewis   
    wrote:   
      
   >In message    
   >  Sandman  wrote:   
   >> In article ,   
   >>  "No One in Particular"  wrote:   
   >   
   >>> >But still, the term "split personality" is unfitting in any stage of   
   >>> >Gollum. Dual nature (as in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hide) is more fitting,   
   >>> >especially in the context of a drug-induced disorder.   
   >>>   
   >>> Was DID in use back in the 1930's though?  Either way, I was thinking more   
   >>> in generalities than specifics.   
   >   
   >> In any way, the term "split personality" in real life and in a story   
   >> doesn't necessarily equate. Meaning that Tolkien and his readers   
   >> doesn't need to apply modern medical definitions to the personality   
   >> state of a character.   
   >   
   >DID and related multiple personality discorders where not well   
   >understood at the time of The Hobbit or The Lord os the Rings writing,   
   >at all. There is still some argument as to whether the disorders even   
   >really exist.   
      
   There are all kinds of disorders that at any given time are well understood,   
   and understood to have been not well understood at any previous time. And when   
   time passes, the new time sees that the well-understood ones were not well   
   understood.   
      
   Thus there are various fashionable disorders that are well-understood at the   
   time that they are fashionable and become not well understood when the fashion   
   passes. Are ADD and ADHD still well understood? I'm afraid I can't keep up.   
      
   Tonsillectomy was probably fashionable when Tolkien was writing.   
      
   Shell shock was probably well-understood when Tolkien was a soldier, but now   
   that it is called PTSD we understand it so much better, since we are clerver   
   enough to refer to it by a string of initials.   
      
      
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