Face of Another

Face of Another is a poignant tale about the plight of a man driven to desolation due to a freak accident that left with a severely scarred face. His wife fails, despite her desperate tries, to see her now mummyfied husband as the man she made love to. He locks himself in a lightless room everyday and the only person who seems to have somewhat of a conversation with is his wife. He finally visits a doctor who, for his own experimental research, makes a face for the man taking the tissue of another man. The man seems to enjoy his face when he gets it. He even seems to develop a more deceptive character. He sees the mask as another way for him to hide as he seduces his own wife wearing the mask. This is where the story's turns a little ambiguous. The wife says that she knew that the man behind the mask was her husband once he takes it off, but her facial expressions seem to indicate otherwise. Going with the fact that she knew that it was her husband and the fact that the mad girl at the hotel knew the same fact, one may conclude that the man's mask didn't change his identity just like the bandages didn't. He may have grown bitter because of other people's reactions due to the bandages and happier when they saw him with a new face that looked real, what didn't change was his relationship to the people who knew him best. The people who he was always around, like his wife. His wife seems to know that the man behind the mask is her husband. Her behavior towards him changed when he lost his face, but that was only because of his physical handicap. She still loved him and stood by him everyday feeding him and doing his laundry. The mad girl didn't even seem to care about the face, since she seemed to have an idea about the man's character. It's character, therefore, that shaped the man into what his identity was and not the mask that seemed to cause him all the mental agony that he had faced when he had the bandages on. His identity was always what he wanted it to be. His changing face didn't change his identity. It simply changed what that identity experienced.