And yet it's in this guise, when he's "not himself", that he's *able to speak most honestly as himself* -- to say all the shit about the other members of his household that he can't say normally, to honestly express his feelings for Jane
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Replying to @arthur_affect @LakyLudke and
It's just one example, and maybe not the strongest example, but it's a demonstration that 1) Mr. Rochester does *change something* very important about his identity when he dresses in drag as a fortuneteller, 2) he's still *himself*, in some real sense he's not *lying*
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Replying to @arthur_affect @LakyLudke and
That this time period and culture that's supposedly rabidly essentialist and therefore anti-performativity is actually obsessed with it Victorians were really into the concept of disguises, secret identities, slumming and drag
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Replying to @arthur_affect @LakyLudke and
At the same time, of course, you can't say that this whole two-faced at-war-with-itself nature of Victorian social norms means the norms weren't really norms That's what the second paragraph means Playing around with drag in fiction is *kinda* pro-self-ID but also anti-self-ID
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Replying to @arthur_affect @LakyLudke and
There's always an "unmasking" moment, a return to "normal" The scene with Rochester as the fortune-teller is *kind of* pro-trans -- it's presenting Rochester adopting a female identity in a sort-of-positive light -- but ultimately not really
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Replying to @arthur_affect @LakyLudke and
The point of the scene is Rochester unmasking himself, taking off the disguise, letting Jane "see underneath" to the "real self" Any of these stories about "masters of disguise" assume the disguise is something that can be and must be taken off
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Replying to @arthur_affect @LakyLudke and
The story always comes back to a "true self" that can be seen when you wash the makeup off or pull off the hairpiece/veil to see your real hair or pull open the clothes to see you naked The idea that there's still an ultimate definition of who you really are based on your body
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Replying to @arthur_affect @LakyLudke and
So these stories can *play with* identity -- with transness and similar concepts -- but never *get there*, the idea that Rochester could actually *change who he is permanently* by changing the way he dresses and acts is cut off, impossible -- the "real him" is always underneath
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Replying to @arthur_affect @LakyLudke and
There, I just gave, at much greater length than the original two paragraphs, my take on what I think they mean (as an only sort-of educated layperson)
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Replying to @arthur_affect @LakyLudke and
The problem, of course, is that my "translation" is not only a lot longer but needed to use specific examples in order to clarify exactly what I think is being said, which provides endless opportunities for sidetracking and bickering about details from bad-faith readers
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And that, as Butler complained about, in trying to make this "accessible" to a wider audience I have to make all these assumptions about what you and my imaginary reader already know or believe ("How do we feel about drag specifically, what will the reaction be to that")
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