Many Masks Summary

Doniger’s article explores the idea of personal identity, or lack thereof. Doniger takes the reader through a series of examples of literal masks in order to conclude that we, as human beings, are constantly wearing masks. We never show our true self, but rather are constantly concealing certain things and projecting others via a set of masks. Doniger opens by exploring impersonators, and how in many cases popularly impersonated public figures can even begin to impersonate themselves. She then goes on to explore transvestites, and “double drag” and “sexual triple cross” (Doniger, 64). Her argument truly opens up, however, when she digs deeper into the matter of masks, however: she argues that we are completely different people around different audiences, using the Woody Allen movie Zelig as an example. Our ‘self’ is thus a mere compilation of the various masks one wears. Doniger concludes with the provocative statement, “ ‘An attendant will tell you when it is safe to take off your mask’ – but no one ever does. For most of us, it is really never safe, or true, or possible, to take off the mask…We need our masks” (Doniger, 71). Doniger thus strongly conveys the message that our masks in fact become ourselves, as we are never without them.