Disguise and Dissimulation

OR “How does Much Ado About Nothing fit into the course theme?”

• The “transformations” seem superficial– Trickery and concealment (disguises and mistaken identities)– Performance (secrets and stageplays)– Sudden emotional shifts

Like The Metamorphosis . . .

• Very sudden changes– Almost immediate “changes of heart” (radical

shifts in behavior and beliefs) • The sense that these “transformations” may

reveal a truth (about a character, about an institution)– We might see people “as they really are”—or not

• Does the transformation reveal the “true self”?

• Does a true self even exist?• Or is it all, in the end just performance?• Do we become who we are through our

actions? Through our daily performances?

Extended Metaphor

All the world’s a stage,And all the men and women merely players.They have their exits and their entrances,And one man in his time plays many parts,His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.Then the whining schoolboy with his satchelAnd shining morning face, creeping like snailUnwillingly to school. And then the lover,Sighing like furnace, with a woeful balladMade to his mistress' eyebrow. . . .

William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2.7