Doniger Exhibit

Wendy Doniger argues in her essay "Many masks, many selves" that there is no monolithic core supporting ones personality, but instead each individual is made up of many interchangeable masks.  Each mask has different characteristics that are chosen at any given time because of the outcome they receive from an audience.  Her argument that because of the multiplicity of the masks one can never define a true personality, brings up the idea of undesired criticism of showing one personality around someone and then a different personality at a different time, or being two-faced.  Doniger admits that it is "notoriously difficult to draw an objective line between healthy and pathological fantasies."  Current.com, a website focused on news stories for the Internet and television, ran a story about personality verse language.  The art used for the article shows a single face being pulled apart into two displaying an array of colors.  Each of the colors represents a different mask the person can choose to wear and if the colors are blended together they can reveal a beautiful scheme.  How can choosing different masks create an effect where others believe there are two distinct often opposite personalities being shown?  Doniger defends the importance of having cohesiveness between as many masks as possible.  If someone lacks the ability to fluidly move from one mask to an opposite mask an outside viewer maybe perceive the gap as a two-faced quality.