Jan Muir and Roleplaying

Jan Muir and Roleplaying

Jean Muir is a player of roles, she is an actress by profession and

plays her roles well. Moreover she is fully aware of the need to play

roles and distinguishes clearly between role-playing and her true

self.

In her letters to Hortense revealed in the last chapter describes this

well: 'I had the audacity to say I was nineteen, to talk scotch..'

But in the opening chapter we are immediately alerted to the fact that

this is a mask and not her true identity: 'my glass showed me an old

woman of thirty, for my false locks were off, my paint gone, and my

face was without its mask'

She plays different roleswith different people - choosing the most

appropriate and effective:

With Sir John, ' afew artless compliments to himself, and he was

charmed'

With Edward ' I risked my neck to pet his beast and he was charmed'

With Bella: ' I made a posy and was sentimental and she was charmed!'

With Lucia 'The fair icicle loves her departed mamma, I had raptures

over an old picture and she thawed'

With Gerald'Monsieur is used to being worshipped. I took no notice of

him and by the natural pervisity of human nature he began to notice

me.'

The mask is an important metaphor. Society demands that women put on

public masks and act according to set norms offemalebehaviour,

restricting true identity and inposing upon its women social,

cultural, and economic limitations.

Jean Muir plays the game to her advantage and in so doing subverts and

challenges the rules of the game.

She has a whole array of costumes, make-up, wigs..etc. She uses these

to control and portay a certain public image, acting...

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...able and breaks out ia a 'passion

of tears' - he is quite unconscious that a scne is being inacted and

that he is being manipulated. Jean's role here is that of the fragile

damsel in distress and Sir John repsonds later by rescuing her. She

appeals to his vanity by allowing him to believe that as an older man

he can stillplay the role of the white knight and is considered more

attarctive than her other youg suitors.

But Jean Muir is not what she appears to be . She is a 'haggard, worn,

and moody woman of thirty at least' . This is no innocent young

governess.

Alcott illustrates that in a patrichal world where women in relation

to men have no status and is powerless - she must capitalize on any

asset that she does posess. They must be adept at playing the

different roles expected of them, be it bride, mother,...