Confessions of a Mask

“I felt as though I had been knocked flat. The person I had thought a he was a she. If this beautiful knight was a woman and not a man, what is there left?”

This quote provides one of the earliest glances at Kochan’s sexuality and understanding of gender. Due to his youth, he does not understand that others would perceive his attraction to a male figure as abnormal, allowing him to experience genuine disgust upon learning Joan of Arc’s identity without trying to mask it. His disgust, however, also arises from his rigid understanding of gender; to make sense of his own sexuality, he must maintain strict divisions between sexes and gender roles.

“But not a single person was visible to my eyes. My frenzy was focused upon the consciousness that, through my impersonation, Tenkatsu was being revealed to many eyes. In short, I could see nothing but myself.”

This is Kochan’s first experience putting on a (literal) mask and delighting in performance, but unlike his future masks, his performance as Tenkatsu—a female figure—enables him to feel more like himself. In contrast with the Joan of Arc passage, this passage shows Kochan himself blurring the lines of gender and feeling briefly liberated by the experience, even if he soon experiences shame from his mother’s negative reaction. This passage is the novel’s only glimpse of a truly unfettered Kochan—beyond this point, he can only see himself through the lens of others and his own self-deception.