jb says: Hi Georgia, and I thought you were a country.

You’re right John that the practical application of masks is extremely diverse, perhaps as diverse as humanity itself – they are after all the extension of ourselves. But not just any type of extension, we are talking about body modification here, and ultimately about ‘transformation’.

In thinking about masks, there is a tendency to focus on facial masks, and the face as the primary interface to the mind and persona. But in my short experience of masks, particularly of making them, I find that ‘mask’ pertains to other parts of the body too. Any exterior artifice that allows for the transformation of the ‘self’ into the expression of ‘other’ is for me a mask.

I would like to go on and elaborate on this, but right now I’m strapped for time. Perhaps this discussion is grounds for a futre blog post or something. In any case I’m just thankful that the debate goes on.

jb says: Good to see you here, Andrew.  Good point about the mask not being restricted to the face.

jb says: True, but that’s not always entirely negative. It might be a blighted life that had to deal without complexity . . .

If you look at his treatment of masks and, in fact, the painful stripping away of those, what you are left with is a powerful portrait of a family upholding an almost impossible truce.

There’s also “The Emperor Jones”, which makes the stripping away of the mask it’s central theme. It’s a wonderfully symbolic play, tracing the regression (here used in a positive sense) of someone returning to his roots, at the end having to face a God of his culture, standing in front of him/it, stripped naked, sans any insignia of his former colonial experience. Great stuff.

I could think of tons more, but this has to suffice (your W. Loman example is also a very good one).

Both are highly recommended if your readers are interested.

P.S.: I like that “invisible-man mask” reference. I think that’s where good writing comes from.

jb says: Thanks for the input. It all adds up.  I’ve never seen The Emperor Jones, and don’t believe that it’s produced very often in the UK. But your remarks about Long Days Journey Into Night bring back memories of the play and make me want to seek it out again.

Great blog, by the way. I enjoy reading your take on things.

jb says:  Hi Volkher, thanks for your kind words. I suppose what I am primarily concerned with is to define the different roles of the mask. Although it is used to camouflage intentions, i.e. as a disguise, it is also used for many other reasons, including the opposite, to display or advertise intentions. In the way in which I am using it the mask is laid over the ‘social role’ (or anti-social role) as a personal interpretation of what it feels like to the wearer to be living that role. This personal element complicates things further, of course, because there isn’t just one mask, say, for a father, or a believer, or a thief.

In the end, as a writer, I’m interested in the uses of masks in delineating character. And I’m asking questions rather than answering them in this realm, observing and cataloguing, listening-in to conversations wearing my invisible-man mask.

Yes we do don a lot of masks. Writer, father, husband, lover, and a lot more. Was great reading about it though.

jb says:  Hi John, I read somewhere that the wearing of many masks can be the benchmark of what we call normality. The wearing of a single mask to cope with all of our eventualities often looks like some kind of psychopathy, or at the very least, a tremendous handicap.