English 2610
Literary Analysis Essay
By: Mike Alder
Masks Are Not Just For Halloween
When was the last time you wore a mask? Everyone goes throughout his or
her life having a mask on every so often. Now, these masks we wear are not for
Halloween or for a masquerade ball, but are metaphorical masks that we put on at
work, with friends, and/or in relationships with loved ones. These masks can be
used to hide an emotion that we don’t want to show or put on an emotion that we
want to portray or change us completely. Many books show this idea of trying to
change who we are, to be something we want to be. There are four books that
demonstrate this idea: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby; Charles Chestnutt’s,
The House Behind the Cedars; Esmeralda Santiago’s, When I was Puerto Rican; and
Gus Lee’s, China Boy. Each of these books has characters that struggle in some way
with their identity. Within this struggle they decide to become someone else or put
on a mask.
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, we follow the story of Jay Gatsby
trying to win over his lost sweet heart, from the perspective of Nick, Gatsby’s nextdoor neighbor. Gatsby is a very mysterious person in the book because he doesn’t
talk too much about his past. Gatsby was stationed at a military base in Louisville,
Kentucky where he fell in love with Daisy. Gatsby goes away for the war and comes
back to find that Daisy is married to another man, who comes from wealth. Gatsby
actually isn’t his real name “James Gatz-that was really, or at least legally his name…
…He invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that at seventeen-year-old boy would likely
invent…” (p. 98). He invented this mask to build himself up as “The Great Gatsby,” by
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throwing these big parties, which he doesn’t even enjoy, with the hopes that Daisy
will stop by and they’ll bump into each other. This does not happen and this is
where we see Gatsby’s mask first come off when he approaches Nick and asks for his
help. Gatsby asks Nick to invite Daisy over for Tea and this is where you see that he
has this mask on as a smooth, rich, powerful man when she comes over and he
begins to act all nervous like a school boy that is going to talk to the girl he has a
crush on. Gatsby isn’t the only character that carries around a mask through out the
book.
In Charles Chestnutt’s The House Behind the Cedars, he focuses on two
siblings, John and Rena Walden, through out the book that both wear masks. John
and Rena are both African Americans who can pose as White, during the
reconstruction era, and assume this role in two different ways. John, as young man,
leaves town and changes his last name to Warrick, he then leaves his life behind in
order to become a successful “white” lawyer. He tells his mother upon his return to
town after several years, “I’ve taken a man’s chance in life, and have tried to make
the most of it; and I haven’t felt under any obligation to spoil it by raking up old
stories that are best forgotten” (p. 11).
Rena, John’s sister, on the other hand gets talked into leaving town with him
to start another life in the new town that he has set up. She, after much persuasion,
leaves with John. Rena then finds love with a white man, Tryon, who ends up finding
out that she is black. Tryon decides that he can’t be with her because of this reason.
In the book, it states that Tryon would be with her “if Rena had been white, pure
white (for in his creed there was no compromise), he would have braved any danger
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for her sake. Had she been mere of illegitimate birth, he would have overlooked the
bar sinister. Had her people been simply poor and low of estate, he would have
brushed aside mere worldly considerations, and would have bravely sacrificed
convention for love…” (p.98). Even though he can’t get passed the fact that she isn’t
pure white, he doesn’t want to ruin her and her brothers reputation by making it
public. John tries to get Rena to come back to the other town with him so she can try
and find another man, but she decides to keep the mask off and live the life she was
supposed to live as a black woman.
In Esmeralda Santiago’s, When I was Puerto Rican, she talks about her
experience of going from a child in Puerto Rico, to a teenager then an adult in
America. She talks about being a child and the confusion of, “… the hypocrisy of
celebrating a people (Rural Puerto Rican with distinctive dialect and customs)
everyone looked down on” (p. 13). This sets her up to go throughout the whole book
wanting to be something more than a typical Puerto Rican. As she gets to Brooklyn,
“There were two kinds of Puerto Ricans in school; the newly arrived, like myself,
and the ones born in Brooklyn of Puerto Rican parents. The two types didn’t mix” (p.
230). She doesn’t want to be the type of Puerto Rican that held onto “old traditions,”
because she wanted to put on a mask in order to fit in and become an American. She
fought herself on this changes because “[she] felt disloyal for wanting to learn
English, for liking pizza, for studying with the girls with big hair and trying out their
styles at home…” (p. 230). Where her mother was the leader in Puerto Rico, the
roles are reversed when they move to Brooklyn due to the fact that her mother
doesn’t speak English and she does. This mask she creates is a necessity for survival.
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In Gus Lee’s China Boy it talks about his experience as the only boy in a
Chinese family trying to grow up in California. After his mother passes away his
stepmother forces him, to go outside his house because she can’t stand him. As he is
forced to go outside he realizes that since he was “kept indoors until the age of
seven… [He] knew nothing about children [his] age” (p 36). His stepmother even
begins beating him because he is holding onto his traditions. His sister, Megan, even
one time “hinted that slapping children in the face was not Chinese” but, their
stepmother replies, “We are not in China, Megan,” Edna would say through her
teeth. That is precisely the point I am striving to make” (p. 72). He later on
encounters another boy, Toussaint, who “would become [his] guide to American
boyhood” (p. 97). Toussaint helps him create his mask by showing him what he
should and shouldn’t do and an American boy.
All these books show different examples of wearing masks. These masks
create either a temporary or permanent change, within the characters. Everyone
goes through out his or her life having a mask on every so often however, after
trying on the mask, they are able to decide if it is now their new face or if they are
going to take it off and try on a different one. Everyday we are changing and those
changes are the masks we decide to try on. The theme in every one of these books is
that multiply characters are trying to fit in and be their best self in the process; Even
though wearing a mask isn’t a bad decision. In conclusion, I believe that all these
authors touched on very different sides of what marginalizing and othering does
and that we need to break through these race, culture, class, ethnicity, religion
issues that are holdings us back from truly accepting others for who they are. “If
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American identity embraces all kinds of people, it also affords them a vast menu of
opportunities to make and remake themselves…Americans instead respect the ‘selfmade’ man or woman, especially where he or she has overcome great obstacles to
success” (Fried man pp. 3). Which means, in America, we can choose to be what we
want to be but people typically only respect the people who overcome great
challenges when we should respect everyone no matter how great or small their
challenges they have overcome.
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Works Citied
Chestnutt, Charles W. The House Behind the Cedars. Dover. Mineola, NY: Dover, 1990.
p. 11 & 98. Print.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York, NY: Scriber, 2004. p. 98. Print.
Friedman, Michael Jay. "American Identity: Ideas, Not Ethnicity." eJournal USA
(2008): pp 1-4. Web. 29 Nov 2010. <http://www.america.gov/st/peopleplaceenglish/2008/February/20080307154033ebyessedo0.5349237.html >.
Lee, Gus. China Boy. New York, NY: Penguin Group, 1994. p. 36-96. Print.
Santiago, Esmeralda. When I Was Puerto Rican. Paperback ed. Cambridge, MA: Da
Capo, 2006. p. 13 & 230. Print
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