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Kathryn Pope 

Dr. Holt 

AP Literature 

7 May 2020 

Cover Letter

In my essay, Self-Fashioning Shown through Conditions, I explore how three plays,

Death of England, Appropriate, and King Lear, connect to the ideas of self-fashioning and the

Authority- alien- self triangle, shown in Greenblatt’s Renaissance Self-Fashioning, the main

signs of self-fashioning are given to the audience through a set of conditions Greenblatt gives us.

These conditions are the main connections in showing that the characters in the plays are going

through self-fashioning. 

I am proud of the way I integrated quotes from all four texts. I am also proud of the way I

was able to use the connections made through the conditions to find examples of self-fashioning.

These examples were able to give me a clearer idea of what the characters in the play actually

felt based on the new aliens and authorities being placed in their lives. 

My typical writing style is concise which made the length requirement difficult. I am

typically good at communicating complex ideas in minimal words to make them more digestible

for the reader. This essay really pushed my boundaries in explaining the ideas and connections

made through longer more complex thoughts. I feel as if in this essay my ideas are organized in a

way that deeply explains the complexity of the idea while also remaining organized in an easily

digestible way. 
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Kathryn Pope 

Dr. Holt 

AP Literature 

7 May 2020 

Self-Fashioning Shown through Conditions 

The plays Appropriate by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Death of England by Roy Williams,

and King Lear by Shakespeare are all written in different periods, by different people, in

different styles. Despite all of their differences, each of the plays share the same underlying

message. That message is that self-fashioning is always occurring, and we cannot control its

occurrence within ourselves. This occurrence happens due to our natural reactions to new

experiences. Self-fashioning is a term Steven Greenblatt explores in his book Renaissance Self-

Fashioning. Self-fashioning and its constant occurrence within people can be understood in the

plays Appropriate, Death of England, and King Lear through the ten conditions and the

Authority- alien- self triangle, explained within the conditions, given by Greenblatt in his novel. 

In Greenblatt’s novel, he explains how self-fashioning is the method of building one's

public and private identity based on a set of socially acceptable standards. Greenblatt lists ten of

these socially acceptable standards, which he refers to as conditions. These conditions are “a set

of governing conditions common to most instances of self-fashioning” (Greenblatt 8-9). This

indicates that when looking for examples of self-fashioning, these conditions are going to be the

most obvious signs that self-fashioning is occurring, but self-fashioning can occur even when the

conditions are not present. Many of the conditions he mentions focus around the Authority-
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alien- self triangle. Each of the pieces of the triangle, Authority, alien, and self, work together to

create one circuit that works within the self-fashioning conditions. The self refers to the actual

person who is going through self-fashioning at that specific moment in time. The self is able to

react to the Authority and the alien based on how society influences us and wants us to react.

This reaction is the act of self-fashioning. The Authority focuses on the set of values that the self

believes they must align with in order to be the best version of themselves within the society.

These values are constructed based on how society influences the self in order to convince them

that if they meet these values, they will be the perfect type of citizen. The alien is the last part of

the triangle. The alien refers to the temptations that are placed in the self's life. Aliens are used to

prevent the self from achieving the values set by the Authority. Aliens also use social stigma to

make the self-rethink their original option about an object or a person. 

The play Appropriate is set in the house of Old Ray who recently passed away. After his

passing, his dysfunctional relatives are reuniting to clean out his house. Although they come to

clean out the whole house, which is located on a plantation, they spend most of their time

in “the living room of [his house on a] former plantation home in southeast Arkansas”

(Branden Jacobs-Jenkins 7). While they are going through the house, the family stumbles upon

artifacts that reveal a side of Ray the family did not know existed. During the entirety of the

play, the relatives remain in a constant state of arguing. This forced time together allows the

family time to attempt to work out their issues such as Toni’s divorce. The family is trying to get

her out of the house by pitying her and saying that “everyone knows that [she] have had -- have

been having -- a very, very, difficult year, years” (Branden Jacobs-Jenkins 24). While the family
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is cleaning out the house and arguing, they find a box with some “antique dead people photos” in

it (Branden Jacobs-Jenkins 42). The photos reveal graphic images of murder victims who died

due to lynching. When the family finds these photos, everyone reacts differently. Cassidy wants

to sell them because “you can sell anything on the internet” while River thinks the photos should

be discarded. 

This scene in the play demonstrates self-fashioning condition five. Condition five states

that “One man’s Authority is another man's alien” (Greenblatt 9). This shows condition five

because “one man's Authority” relates to the photo’s Authority over Ray while “another man's

alien” refers to how each of the family members now has a new alien influence in their lives

(Greenblatt 9). Greenblatt uses self-fashioning in the context of socially acceptable standards.

Lynching now is not socially acceptable and is typically connected to racism. When the family

sees these photos, they begin to self-fashion and rethink how they saw their Grandfather. The

photos acting as aliens are pulling the family member’s away from their accepting Authorities

and causing them to rethink the way they viewed Ray and his values. This is clearly

demonstrated when Cassidy asks River “Do you think he was a racist”? (Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

42). The finding of the photos leads the family members to start to think about if Ray was a

racist during his life. If he was not a racist, what Authority value would entice him enough to

keep these graphic photos? These social influences and aliens begin to have the family

questioning Ray's acceptance of all people and the backgrounds that they come from. 

Condition six explains that “When one Authority or alien is destroyed, another takes its

place” (Greenblatt 9). This is shown during the same scene in Appropriate where the family
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finds Ray’s stash of graphic lynching photos. Many families put Ray in a place of Authority

because he is their parent and they look up the example he sets. When Ray, the one of the

family's Authority figures and father, died, according to Greenblatt’s conditions, he must be

replaced. He is replaced with the photos found acting as an alien to the family. This allows the

family members to self-fashion, based on the social opinions that relate to their new alien,

lynching photos, and create a new view of the Authority figure they once had. 

In Death of England, the same self-fashioning conditions, five and six, are demonstrated.

After Michaels’s dad passed away, he is left feeling powerless and angry. During the funeral of

his father, a man named Riz approaches Michael. Michael has never met or heard of Riz before,

and Riz introduces Michael to a side of his dad Michael is unaware of. Riz takes Michael to an

apartment where his dad’s “bleeding room” is located (Roy Williams and Clint Dyer 30). “The

bleeding room” is the “rented plot for the stall from me” Riz explains (Roy Williams and Clint

Dyer 30). Here, Michael becomes introduced to one of his father's Authorities. His father's

Authority quickly becomes Michael’s alien. While Michael is in the bleeding room, he finds a

secret Apple brand laptop. Michael knew his father “had a desktop at home”, but did not know

how his father owned this other laptop because “it was an Apple… and new at that… good

money that cost'' (Roy Williams and Clint Dyer 38). When Michael began to search the laptop,

he found his father’s Authority. The laptop had large amounts of pornography stored on it. Every

time Michael clicked the mouse, more porn appeared; “click more porn” (Roy Williams and

Clint Dyer 38). Michael did not know that his father owned or even had access to all of this, but

once his Father gained access to it, due to pornography’s addictive nature, it quickly became his
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Authority. The ideas within his father’s pornography began to influence Michael’s dad and his

decisions. 

When Michael finds the laptop, he sees the pornography as an alien, because of the aliens

positon in the triangle, it begins to alter Michael’s original view of his father. Now that Michael

is beginning to see a new side of this father, the information stored on the laptop begins

Michael’s self-fashioning process and points him in a direction that changes his view of his

father. This example of self-fashioning is noticeable because Michael is following condition five,

“One man’s Authority is another man's alien” (Greenblatt 9). Pornography was the Authority of

his father, and also the alien to Michael. This new information about his dad changed the

viewpoint of him in Michaels’s mind due to the social stigma around pornography. These

stigmas are what set Michael’s self-fashioning in motion, and they are what move his father into

a new light.

This same instance when Michael finds the laptop also shows Michael’s self-fashioning

through condition six. Condition six explains that “When one Authority or alien is destroyed,

another takes its place” (Greenblatt 9). When his father's life ended, or was destroyed, something

else needed to take his place. For Michael, the pornography, the bleeding room, and the ideas

and stigma surrounding them, stemming from social constructs, altered the thoughts and feelings

Michael originally had about his father.  

While the other plays' moments of self-fashioning are identifiable based around

conditions five and six, King Lear demonstrates self-fashioning through the first and second

conditions Greenblatt mentions. Condition one states that “None of the figures inherits a title, an
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ancient family tradition or hierarchical stats that might have rooted personal identity in the

identity of a clan or caste” (Greenblatt 9). In King Lear, the king decides to step down from

power and allow his three daughters equal power over the kingdom. In order for them to gain

that power, he puts the daughters through a test to gauge their loyalty to him and the kingdom.

When he tests his oldest daughter's love, Goneril, she says “Sir, I love you more than word can

wield the matter, dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty, beyond what can be valued, rich or

rare, no less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honor; as much as child e’er loved, or father

found; a love that makes breath poor, and speech unable. Beyond all manner of so much I love

you” (Shakespeare 1.1.60-67). She passes the test and gains part power over the kingdom.

Reagan is tested next and says “I am made of that self mettle as my sister and prize me at her

worth. In my true heart I find she names my very deed of love; only she comes too short, that I

profess myself an enemy to all other joys which the most precious square of sense possesses, and

find I am alone felicitate in your dear highness’ love” (Shakespeare 1.1.76-84). Reagan's

response also allows her to pass the test and gain her share of the kingdom. When the youngest

daughter Cordelia was asked about her love, she said “and yet not so, since I am sure my lov’s

more ponderous than my tongue, nothing my lord” (Shakespeare 1.1.87). When she says this, her

father fails her portion of the test, and he divides her share of the kingdom among her two sisters.

The King of France, the man who courted Cordelia, says that even without the kingdom, he still

will love her. 

Cordelia was practicing self-fashioning during this test because she did not allow herself

to attach her identity to the kingdom or the title she would inherit if she passed the test. She
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allows herself to form her identity around who she is and not whom society sees her as, which is

the daughter of the King. Condition two states that “Self-fashioning for such figures involves

submission to an absolute power or Authority situated at least partially outside the self”

(Greenblatt 9). When the King's daughters were put through their loyalty test, they were asked

how much they truly love the king. The two oldest daughters self-fashioned through condition

two and submitted to the absolute power that is their father as their Authority. They told their

father their loyalty, but then they began to fall into condition one. Once they had the power over

the kingdom, they did not let the influence of being an heir to their father, like the condition one

says, influence the decisions they made. Instead, they found their true identities and began to

undermine and upset their father. 

Self-Fashioning is constantly being demonstrated even when it goes unnoticed. That is

why paying attention to the conditions Steven Greenblatt provides is crucial when trying to

identify it. Greenblatt uses his conditions as a way to allow self-fashioning to be easily

identified. It is also important that as a person, you pay attention to what in your life is your

Authority and what you alien is. Once those are identified, it is easier to move away from your

alien and move closer to your Authority. Using these conditions and the Authority- alien- self

triangle, instances of self-fashioning in the plays Appropriate, Death of England, and King Lear

become more apparent. 

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Works Cited

Jacobs-Jenkins, Branden. Appropriate. New York, Dramatists Play Service, 2016.

Shakespeare, William, et al. The Tragedy of King Lear. Simon & Schuster paperback edition ed., New

York, Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2016.

Williams, Roy, and Clint Dyer. Death of England. London, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020.