Bobby

Bobby is an inner personality of William Stanley Milligan whose fantasies provide an imaginative escape from prison life. His self-invention as a hero sits uneasily beside his lack of confidence: he can picture daring adventures and a dramatic public role, yet doubts his ability to carry out even an ordinary plan. That contrast comes to a head during a hunger strike, when his attempt to become an exemplary leader continues after the protest has ended and damages his health.

Identity and Self-Presentation

In solitary confinement, Bobby scratched his name into the steel bunk. He used fantasy to imagine himself as an actor in a movie or on television, traveling to distant places and taking part in heroic adventures. These imagined roles gave him a life beyond the cell, even as the bunk and isolation fixed the limits of his actual circumstances.

He strongly objected when others called him Robert and insisted on being called Bobby. The distinction mattered to him: the name he claimed was part of how he presented himself, while the other name was one imposed by those around him. The account also characterizes him as lacking ambition of his own and taking up other people's ideas and thoughts as if they were his own.

Confidence and the Hunger Strike

Bobby's imagined heroism contrasts with his stated inability to act. When someone suggested that he do something, he would say that he could not do it; among the personalities, he alone was described as lacking confidence in his ability to carry out a plan. His fantasies could supply a borrowed sense of purpose, but they did not resolve this difficulty with action.

When he first heard about the prisoners' hunger strike, Bobby imagined himself leading it and setting an example for the others. He pictured his fasting as a campaign like Mahatma Gandhi's, one that would bring repressive authorities to their knees. The strike ended a week later, but Bobby continued to fast. The distinction between the collective protest and his private continuation is consequential: what began in his imagination as a dramatic act of leadership became a prolonged fast, and he lost a great deal of weight.

Conduct and the Inner Group's Judgment

One evening, when a guard opened Bobby's cell to bring him a food tray, Bobby pushed it back and threw the slop over the guard's face. The episode gives his prison conduct a more confrontational edge than his hesitant self-image suggests, while remaining tied to the immediate encounter over food and the cell door.

Arthur and Ragen recognized that Bobby's fantasies had helped them endure the long months in prison, but they judged his continued fasting dangerous because it was weakening the body. Ragen declared him undesirable. The judgment marks a limit to the value of Bobby's imaginative escape: it could help the inner group survive confinement, but it could not justify an action they believed was physically harming him.