36 Views | Themes

36 Views Themes

Authenticity

Authenticity is the most prominent underlying theme of play. It appears in relation to things, such as artwork and artifacts. Claire Tsong questions the authenticity of an ancient pillow book by creating a keen replica of a non-existent artifact. She believes that perception is reality—i.e., if the book is perceived as an artifact, then it is an artifact. Interestingly, this theme continues into the characters' relationships to one another. Setsuko Hearn and Darius Wheeler's relationship was rooted and disrupted by its authenticity. Wheeler truly loved Hearn. However, Hearn did not see his love as authentic. She believed that his feelings were untrue and he was manipulating her feelings to use her credibility to authenticate Tsong's fake "ancient" pillow book. Lastly, the fabric of authenticity is at the individual crux of nearly every main character. Each character has multiple appearances or identities. From this standpoint, it is difficult to identify which...
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