XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies   
      
   In message    
     Steve Hayes  wrote:   
   > 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.   
      
   OK, since you seemed to have missed what I was saying.   
      
   Split Personalities (if they exist at all) were not something that were   
   widely accepted at the time The Hobbit was written, if they were   
   accepted at all. Tolkien would not have written what we might think of   
   as an accurate portrayal of DID because he wouldn't have know about it.   
      
      
      
      
   --   
   I said pretend you've got no money, she just laughed and said, 'Eh   
   you're so funny.' I said, 'Yeah? Well I can't see anyone else smiling in   
   here.'   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)