A psychological analysis of the main character with multiple personality in Daniel Keyes’ The Minds of Billy Milligan

As long as we live in the world, we are not able to avoid a conflict although we never invite it. A conflict comes to us unconsciously and usually we do not realize that our attitude causes of conflict. Conflict can influence our psychological condition. The psychologists state that conflict exist when we are under pressure to respond simultaneously two or more incompatible forces.

Daniel Keyes authored a novel The Mind of Billy Milligan. It tells about the biographical story of William Stanly Milligan or known as Billy Milligan, he was the subject of a highly publicized court case in the state of Ohio in the late 1970s. After having committed several felonies including armed robbery, he was arrested for three rapes on the Ohio State University campus. In the course of preparing his defense, psychologists determined that Milligan had Multiple Personality Disorder. This study emphasizes to analyze the forms of psychological conflicts of Billy Milligan, the main character of The Minds of Billy Milligan, its causes and effects to Billy’s personality and behavior. In the second part of analysis, we also analyze kinds of Billy’s personalities, this part presents and analyzes 10 of the most dominant from 24 personalities which Billy has.

To achieve the above objectives of the study, this study is categorized as literary criticism since this study is emphasized on the analysis of literary work. The primary data of this study are collected from Daniel Keyes’ The Minds of Billy Milligan. The researcher applies a psychological personality.

After doing the analysis process of data collected related to the forms of Billy’s psychological conflicts, and the result shows that we are able to divide the forms of psychological conflicts faced by Billy Milligan into: internal and external conflicts. Internal conflicts are shown in the forms of Trauma, anxiety, and Depression. Whereas the external conflicts or the conflict that comes from outside is Billy’s child abuses which are done by his stepfather. Whereas as result of the second part of analysis that emphasize to analyze the kinds of Billy’s personalities by using Jung’s theory conclude that from 10 of 24 personalities which are being analyzed by the researcher, we find only three types of personality among them, introversion thinking, introversion feeling, and extroversion feeling. This study also proves that child abuses which are experienced by Billy is the most responsible thing to all the entire of Billy’s psychological conflicts and also his Multiple personality.