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Dear Jansy,
even if the subject of split personality has no Freudian overtones
in psychoanalysis as such, the question is, did it have in 50 and 60-es
in the USA when VN was writing Pale Fire? I think psychoanalysis was
then and there very powerful and tried to treat almost every subject.
This irritated not only VN who could be quite violent toward it,
but other prominent writers (Salinger and his writings come to
my mind). I speak of historical reconstruction, not about your
"objective" view as a psychoanalyst.
Sergei
EDNote: VN would have gotten his earliest major exposure to the "split
personality" concept from William James' retelling of the work of
Pierre Janet and of some famous cases from the 19th century (Patience
Worth, Ansel Bourne) in Principles of Psychology; possibly also
from works by Theodule Ribot. Matt Roth and I have both previously
mentioned Donald James West's Psychical Research Today (1954).
My own research on this subject has not revealed major connections
between Freudian theory and multiple personalities in the 1950s--either
independently, or in Nabokov's notes on the subject. ~SB