How You Present Yourself

Do our choices about how we present ourselves to the world conceal or reveal our personalities? Write a brief description of someone who presents an outward appearance that is completely different form what is on the inside. Think of a character from film, literature, or television, or make up your own.


Our choices can either conceal our personalities from the world, or they can reveal our nature to those around us. By deciding to present ourselves and act in a manner contradictory to our true nature, we give others a specific impression that does not reveal our true nature. Whichever choice we choose to do, we leave upon others a specific impression for them to judge us by. In a sense, the choice of concealing ourselves from others can ultimately reveal something about our true personalities, but this is only if one sees through the appearance you bear. Most people act slightly differently around different people, leaving different impressions upon each.


I think that in most cases there's a balance between how much we reveal and how much we conceal. There's always a balance, whether we are totally conscious of it or not, to better fit the current circumstances that we are in.


The best example I can think of of someone who conceals his true personality is a character from To Kill a Mockingbird, Dolphus Raymond. Raymond is an extremely wealthy white man, but he is treated disdainfully within his community because he had children with a colored woman. In appearance, Raymond takes on the form of an alcoholic, stumbling around town and drinking out of a paper bag (assumed to be alcohol). However in reality, he is more than sane, and the liquid from the sack is actually coca-cola. He does this because he knows that the people of Maycomb will never understand why he was with a black woman, and uses the appearance of the alcoholic to give them a reason to believe why. This allows him to live an easier life.


It is from this that Scout, and the readers, learns that sometimes you simply need to pretend to be someone you know you are not, in order to fit the circumstances.