I love the word “persona.” It comes from Latin into the English language to mean “mask.” Halloween is upon us. With its ghostly visitation comes a very fine occasion to appreciate the deepness of the lexical similitude between “persona” and “person.”
I find it screamingly fallacious, even idiotic, to think of Halloween as a day of disguise. Nothing is farther from the truth. The day of Halloween, in actuality, is a day of self-exposition. For by putting on a Halloween “persona,” you are revealing a part of your “true person.”
Whether you choose to be a sexy nurse, Celtic warrior, fairytale queen or Victorian gentleman, you are doing something far more expressive than just “having fun” or “acting ridiculous”; you are, in fact, saying something about yourself.
Put on a Batman suit, and you are communicating a secret wish to be a heroic figure. Become a bare-chested Tarzan, and you are projecting an image of wild manhood. And dress as Miley, and you are giving us your definition of “finally-I-am-20” girliness. Even in a costume one puts on with the purpose of mocking a certain character, your parody is making the point that you disassociate yourself from that character, and his/her army of followers; and, by doing so, you are declaring your sense of belonging to perhaps the opposite model instead of the object of your mockery.
Costumes, then, are nothing but communication devices.They give away your inner thoughts, aspirations, ulterior motives, nostalgic sentimentalities and the objects of your admiration or derision. They reveal the deepest, most private sides of your true self. What is so mysterious in that costume you plan to get after all?
In fact, if you think about it, what would be very mysterious indeed is for a guy to walk into a Halloween party with his face bare. By divesting himself of a persona, he gives no clue of what he represents, stands for or desires to be. Ironically, his true face becomes the real mask.
The similitude between your Halloween “persona” and “true person” is kindred to yet another one. This time, it is similitude between the façade of your Facebook, on the one hand, and the essence of the personality which lies behind that facade, on the other. If you were to agree with my thesis that Halloween costumes and masks make certain points about our personalities and thoughts, then perhaps you will deem it cogent to say – allegorically speaking – that Halloween is a Facebook in motion.
Your costume or mask serves the same purpose as your profile picture. We use both, whether consciously or unconsciously, to communicate how we would like to be perceived by others. Following the same allegory, the character of the costume or mask becomes a status, a Halloween status.
Even further, when you and your friends agree to go as certain supporting characters in group costumes, the idea works to the same effect of a FB cover picture, tagging, or mentioning, by which friends communicate solidarity. And isn’t it fascinating how someone excites our curiosity when he/she mentions that he/she does not have a Facebook account? Does not have a persona? Just as the guy who walks into a Halloween party with no costume or mask?
Now aside from my allegory, I come back to my main point: By wearing a costume or putting on a mask, you are masquerading in your true self. So have a happy, “self revealing” Halloween everybody.
Ahmed Seif is a graduate student of English literature from Alexandria, Egypt.
