American novelist Louisa May Alcott produced her 1866 novella Behind a Mask under the pseudonym of A.M. Barnard. Living in a discriminatory era, and writing for a partial society which favored Men authors over their female counterparts, adopting a male pen name was the alternative that Alcott had opted for in order to save her literary productions from the injustice of prejudiced criticism. The novella appeared thus for the first time in The Flag of Our Union which was a weekly story paper published in Boston, Massachusetts, in the mid-19th century. It was more than a century later that the book was re-published under Alcott’s real name causing a critical re-evaluation of her career as an author, and allowing more of her works the due attention and appreciation they deserved. One such example is the 1990’s highly acclaimed theatrical adaptation of her most famous novel Little Women.
Alcott’s literary skills are known for their versatility, for her works vary between children’s literature, young adult books, gothic thrillers, autobiography, poetry, and drama. Behind a Mask is in truth one of the least known yet most interesting of Alcott’s compositions. The novella, in terms of genre, falls within the bracket of sensation fiction and gothic thriller. It is also a thorough analysis of the outcome of class-clash and gender discrimination on society. Even the title of this work is significant. Alcott herself was hiding behind a mask when she wrote and published it for the same reason its central character did the same; namely because society offered no opportunities for women. Therefore, the work can also be read as a feminist text throwing the light upon the hardships and impediments which met women at the time.
The central character in the novella, namely Jean Muir, is at once the antagonist and the protagonist of the tale. This detail meets the requirements of sensation fiction and reminds us of other such specimens of the genre like Wilkie Collins’ 1878 novel The Haunted Hotel whose main character - Countess Narona - is also a woman who combines feminine attraction with unusual wit to marry then murder her husband for his fortune. In addition to this, there is also a touch of the Gothic in Behind a Mask. The story conforms to the genre’s tradition in positing a foreign threat in the person of the Scotch governess against the peace of an oblivious family completely unaware of the predator living under their roof.
On the whole, Behind a Mask is a brilliant work that combines more than one literary genre with an unpredictable story line, and which deals between its lines with the injustice of society especially when it is a question of women's rights and conditions.
