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The Woman Who Pretended to Be Who She Was - Myths of Self-Imitation (Hardcover)
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The Woman Who Pretended to Be Who She Was - Myths of Self-Imitation (Hardcover)
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Many cultures have myths about self-imitation, stories about people
who pretend to be someone else pretending to be them, in effect
masquerading as themselves. This great theme, in literature and in
life, tells us that people put on masks to discover who they really
are under the masks they usually wear, so that the mask reveals
rather than conceals the self beneath the self.
In this book, noted scholar of Hinduism and mythology Wendy
Doniger offers a cross-cultural exploration of the theme of
self-impersonation, whose widespread occurrence argues for both its
literary power and its human value. The stories she considers range
from ancient Indian literature through medieval European courtly
literature and Shakespeare to Hollywood and Bollywood. They
illuminate a basic human way of negotiating reality, illusion,
identity, and authenticity, not to mention memory, amnesia, and the
process of aging. Many of them involve marriage and adultery, for
tales of sexual betrayal cut to the heart of the crisis of
identity.
These stories are extreme examples of what we common folk do,
unconsciously, every day. Few of us actually put on masks that
replicate our faces, but it is not uncommon for us to become
travesties of ourselves, particularly as we age and change. We
often slip carelessly across the permeable boundary between the
un-self-conscious self-indulgence of our most idiosyncratic
mannerisms and the conscious attempt to give the people who know
us, personally or publicly, the version of ourselves that they
expect. Myths of self-imitation open up for us the possibility of
multiple selves and the infinite regress of self-discovery.
Drawing on a dizzying array of tales-some fact, some fiction-The
Woman Who Pretended to Be Who She Was is a fascinating and learned
trip through centuries of culture, guided by a scholar of
incomparable wit and erudition.
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