The dubious truth of the masks in As You Like It The most obvious concern of As You Like It is love, and in particular the attitudes and language appropriate to young romantic love. Here Rosalind's role is decisive, and much of the response to this play will depend on the reaction to her. Rosalind is Shakespeare's greatest and most vibrant comic female role. The focus of this essay is Rosalind's concern with the outward appearance of things. It is unclear whether this is the result of her disguise, the reason for it or the way Shakespeare reveals her presence, but on the other hand Rosalind's constant insistence on the truth of the masks and on the other hand her willingness to doubting this very truth fascinates me. When she decides to dress up as a boy, Rosalind seems to think that a masculine appearance is enough to convince the world at large (I.iii.111-118). She is "higher than common" and so all she needs is a "gallant curtle-axe", a "boar's spear", and a "fearful and martial exterior" to hide her feminine anxiety. Assuming that no one will have the intuition to look beyond her masculine costume, she argues that since cowardly men are able to hide these feminine qualities, she should be able to pass herself off as a man, simply by acting masculine. Being so totally dependent on his disguise not being discovered, it is funny how he continues to doubt anyone who doesn't put on an outward show adequate to his claims of feeling. The first to testify in this way is Orlando. As Ganymede Rosalind refuses to accept Orlando's claim to be the desperate author of the love verses he found hanging from the trees because he has no visible signs of love on him. A thin cheek, which you don't have; a deep-set blue eye, which you don't have; an indisputable spirit, which you do not have; a neglected beard, which you have not (...) Then your stockings should be untied, your cap untied, your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe untied, and all around you demonstrating careless desolation. (III.ii.363-371) In other words, he is not exactly the picture of the desperate suitor. Not even Jaques lives up to Rosalind's expectations of the melancholy traveler. He greets him with a "they say you are" (IV.i.3), and sends him away with the order: Look, he stammers and wears strange clothes; disable all benefits of your country; do not love your nativity, and almost reproach God for having made the face that you are; or I will hardly think that you swam in a gondola. (IV.i.31-36) She therefore seems constantly willing to place emphasis on the outward manifestation of feelings. But in moments when his disguise falters for a moment, he soon questions the fixity of the assumed identity of others. This is perhaps clearest in the scene where Orlando failed to show up for the first time. Her anxiety - aided by being alone with Celia - forces her to lower her defenses for a moment. His instinctive attack on Orlando is against his appearance: "His very hair is of a dissimulating colour." (III.iv.6) A moment later he seems to erase this with his "I think her hair is a nice color." (III.iv.9) Either she is very confused now, or she is saying that the ability to dissemble is a good thing. If Rosalind had been a human being, we might have seen this concern with people's appearance as an expression of insecurity about one's own identity, conscious or unconscious. An insecurity that would be completely natural in her situation as a displaced heir and a transvestite woman. Seen in this light, or consciously play with.