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Mask Metempsychosis Reinventing Cultural Icons

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Mask Metempsychosis Reinventing Cultural Icons Mask Metempsychosis Reinventing Cultural Icons by Călin D. Lupiţu a Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Intercultural Humanities Approved Dissertation Committee Prof. Dr. K. Ludwig Pfeiffer_____ Name and title of Chair Prof. Dr. Immacolata Amodeo Name and title of Committee Member Prof. Dr. Ursula Frohne Name and title of Committee Member Date of Defense: 7/06/2012 School of Humanities and Social Sciences Table of Contents Abstract 3 I. Introduction. Mask and Mask Rituals: Origins and Mechanics 4 II. A Chronology of Masks in the Western World 20 1. From Myths to Tragedies 21 2. From Saturnalia to Shakespeare 32 3. From Novels to Graphic Novels 69 4. Nowadays 88 III. The Mask Metempsychosis 95 IV. The Archetype Matrix 103 V. Articulating Power: Aesthetic and Cognitive Monsters 121 Conclusions 130 Annexes 132 Bibliography 139 The Mask Metempsychosis: Reinventing Cultural Icons Abstract: Apart from the author‟s personal interest in phenomena dealing with the construction, negotiation, maintenance, manipulation and reification of personal and public identity, this work is based on consistent recent confirmations of masks not only being „alive and well‟ in popular culture as well as in (social) media, but in fact articulating socio-political power in ways not unlike those of their archaic prototypes. Therefore, one aim pursued herein is the tracing of an evolution of masks in the Western collective consciousness, across several outstanding epochs and genres, which we have linked together in order to better visualise performance, reception and interaction trends leading up to the present. Another aim of this research is the introduction of new patterns and categories as conceptual tools for further investigation, beginning with defining the Mask Metempsychosis process itself and discussing its three phases in specific contexts of cultural history, as indicated above. Thirdly, mask-wearing archetypes of folklore and more recent fiction will be analysed throughout, together with outstanding characters they have engendered, based on the previously set two layers of reception. The reader shall thus gain further insight into masks‟ articulation of power and aesthetics as part of the complex everyday and ceremonial negotiations of private and public, self and community, as well as of the socio-political with the religious and the psychological. I. Introduction. Masks and Mask Rituals: Origins and Mechanics Self-awareness is a crucial factor in determining whether an entity should be designated as sentient. Even living in isolation, self-aware beings will find ways to outwardly express their uniqueness, to distinguish themselves from – and perhaps set boundaries against – the environment they are otherwise part of. The issue is complicated when several such entities of sufficient similarity share living quarters or otherwise come in contact. At this point, while they are each aware of being distinct from the world at large, of being „the one‟ as opposed to „the all‟, the challenge is to prove and assert themselves as each distinct from one another. Being different is no longer as relevant as it is exactly how one is different; the emergence of a community thus manages to shift the members‟ reflexive focus from self-awareness and individuality to identity. In nature, a specimen‟s identity – i.e., as per the above, the set of particulars whose totality unequivocally differentiates it from all other individuals of the same species – is indeed a matter of life and death, as it prominently features in finding a suitable mate or defending oneself against predators. The latter is particularly one section of life where not just identity, but especially its manipulation, has proven critical, from common cases of slightly altering one‟s colours, sound, smell, or size so as to avoid detection, to entire subspecies permanently adapting such features to better withstand a new environment. Among humans, identity representation – and especially its misrepresentation – occurs much like above, yet with greater deliberateness. Departing from the initial stage of imitating the camouflage and mimicry successes of the animal kingdom, man‟s statements of identity are, on one hand, telling measures of intellect, insight and creativity, even via their role of circumventing, if not answering, the dreaded question of „Who am I?‟. On the other, their more sophisticated forms further spice their grasp on the human condition by recourse to the social, psychological, political 4 and religious aspects. Further, due to the interconnectedness and prominence of such aspects in a person‟s life, identity representation becomes identity simulation – „dress rehearsal‟, or a community play that becomes a learning game – and genuine transformations of the performers‟ social, psychological, political and religious fibre may indeed occur. It is hardly surprising then that the act of identity representation and manipulation among human beings should have far greater implications than a mere act of defence. Since mankind‟s societies are based on and enforced in their norms by (un)written contracts between individuals and the community, abusing the representation of one‟s identity, for whatever reason, is an „expert-level‟ form of playing the community game. Namely, the misrepresentation of identity is thus a cheat or violation of those contracts, yet whose existence is needed to reinforce those very foundations of normalcy, as we shall later observe. Undertaking it situates the performer in an uneasy cognitive and artistic locus, ever shifting between the former and the new; the truth and the deception; the permanent and the transient; the one and the many; the simple (or „proper‟, „natural‟) and the composite (or „monstrous‟, „chimerical‟). For human beings as visual creatures, perceiving reality, negotiating it and attempting to make sense of it have always relied heavily on the sense of sight. The particular realities of one‟s personal identity and social participation are similarly dominantly linked to facial traits such as the eyes and the mouth, particularly their motion cues and, foremost, the extent of their visual availability. While there are also documented exceptions (in, for instance, Pollock 1995: 591), of relatively isolated cultures where identity is managed to an equal or higher extent via aural or olfactory strategies, in the Western world, apart from the sight-impaired community, bodily references to personal identity have mostly remained visual. Therefore, the need and the solutions to dissimulate and thus reconstruct visual identity must also belong to the realm of vision, whose most successful such solutions appear to have been the masks. The practices and meanings associated with them differ throughout the world, yet it would not be in error to affirm that most human cultures, past and present, have had at least some rituals involving masks and masking (Segy 1976: 2-4). In fact, 5 “the mask has […] been used for various geo-political, socio-cultural, and religious purposes, for example warfare, divination, and rites [of] passage, even for exhibitions and tourist indulgences. It is virtually being used today in most cultures for the same or similar objectives.” (Ebong 1984: 1) Enshrouded in the mists of historical speculation, the origins of mask rituals can nevertheless be estimated as having been, as he also writes, in the “religions, rituals, and theatre crafts of the so-called “primitive,” non-literate societies.” (Ebong 1984: 1) For the early man in his initiation rites, masking literally signified becoming, “men transforming themselves into spirits” (Mack 1994: 17), by simply applying “new faces” to themselves, in accordance with what those faces were made of and what they could be held to signify. To this day, many surviving animist and polytheist cults perform their (male) initiation ceremonies with the assistance of masked figures whom they do not, or choose not to, perceive as humans, but proper deities or nature spirits. In fact, the core moment of the entire ceremony, the mystery, in which the man behind the mask is revealed to them, is met with either silent-sworn disillusionment or elation at being reborn into a society of humans able to embody supernatural beings (Mack 1994: 17-19). And yet, the most familiar masks of nowadays appear far removed from their ritual-employed ancestors, having, for the most part, far lighter meanings and serving more mundane purposes, from entertainment to work safety. In the words of Ronald L. Grimes (1992), “those of us who make Halloween masks with our children do not enter ecstatic states when we put on our witch and vampire masks.” Have we perhaps lost something subtle and precious on the way through the history of civilisation from then to now? How has our perception of, and interaction with, masks changed over the ages? We would rather argue that for any epoch, while masks in their physical form are limited to certain extra-ordinary performances or social settings, as well as to certain individuals or social groups, the concepts of masks and mask rituals continue to haunt our imagination and exert a tremendous fascination over us all. Their wide and potent appeal may largely be explained when we realise masks give concrete 6 weight to the above considerations on cheating the community game, allowing for immense, if momentary, power as a manifestation of our individual and community- wide fantasies. It is precisely that conspicuous concreteness of theirs that renders the social mechanics of masks able to dislodge their bearers from the banal and the mundane in which they have ontologically been immersed prior, and whence they will return at the end of the performance. Meanwhile, they are projected onto a plane of symbolic, perceived and/or ritually real existence where they become identified with the sacred, the uncanny and the non-human, warranting their participation in community events where the interface of the sacred and the profane can only be achieved by personages who are both, or neither.
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