exhibit for Doniger article

Wendy Doniger provides her argument for people's motivation for masquerading and self-impersonation in her essay, "Many masks, many selves." Doniger explains that people are driven to such impersonations through the pressure of public expectations and through the hopes of creating an enduring sense of self. According to Doniger, self-impersonation is used as a method of self-identification. However, Doniger neglects to inform the reader of the possibility of other motives for masquerading; she neglects to mention the fact that identity of the self has not always been the primary goal or function of such disguises. For example, in her article, " 'Folk Justice' and Royal Justice in Early Seventeenth-Century England: A 'Charivari' in the Midlands," Joan R. Kent describes charivaris, in which participants often donned masks, as having a social function, serving as a sort of "local, traditional folk justice." Briefly defined, charivaris were ritualized mechanisms of social control in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries in which a community expressed their collective dismay over adulterous relationships, cuckolded husbands, abusers or other social offenders of the like. According to Kent, "masks and costumes seem to have been a common feature" of these rather noisy, chaotic processions known as charivaris. Apparently, masquerading can be utilized for means other than self-identification such as a means for social justice and community control, an aspect that Wendy Doniger may have overlooked in her essay.