Character mask

A character mask (German: Charaktermaske) in the Marxian sense is a character disguised with a different character. The term was used by Karl Marx in various published writings from the 1840s to the 1860s, and also by Friedrich Engels. It is related to the classical Greek concepts of mimesis (imitative representation using analogies) and prosopopoeia (impersonation or personification) as well as the Roman concept of persona, but also differs from them (see below). The notion of character masks has been used by neo-Marxist and non-Marxist sociologists, philosophers and anthropologists to interpret how people relate in societies with a complex division of labour, where people depend on trade to meet many of their needs.

Marx's own idea of character masks was not a cut-and-dried academic concept with a fixed definition.

As a psychological term, "character" is traditionally used more in continental Europe, while in Britain and North America the term "personality" is used in approximately the same contexts. Marx however uses the term "character mask" analogously to a theatrical role, where the actor (or the characteristics of a prop) represents a certain interest or function, and intends by character both "the characteristics of somebody" and "the characteristics of something". Marx's metaphorical use of the term "character masks" refers back to carnival masks and the masks used in classical Greek theatre. At issue is the social form in which a practice is acted out.

A sophisticated academic language for talking about the sociology of roles did not exist in the mid-19th century. Marx therefore borrowed from theatre and literature to express his idea. Although György Lukács pioneered a sociology of drama in 1909, a sociology of roles began only in the 1930s, and a specific sociology of theatre (e.g. by Jean Duvignaud) first emerged in the 1960s. Marx's concept is both that an identity appears differently from its true identity (it is masked or disguised), and that this difference has very real practical consequences (the mask is not simply a decoration, but performs a real function and has real effects, even independently of the mask bearer).

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