One, None and One Hundred Thousand Profiles: Re-imagining the Pirandellian Identity Dilemma in the Era of Online Social Networks

摘要

Uno, Nessuno, Centomila ("One, No One and One Hundred Thousand") is a classicnovel by Italian playwright Luigi Pirandello. Published in 1925, it recountsthe tragedy of Vitangelo Moscarda, a man who struggles to reclaim a coherentand unitary identity for himself in the face of an inherently social andmulti-faceted world. What would Moscarda identity tragedy look like today? Inthis article we transplant Moscarda's identity play from its offline setting tothe contemporary arena of social media and online social networks. Withreference to established theories on identity construction, performance, andself-presentation, we re-imagine how Moscarda would go about defending theintegrity of his selfhood in the face of the discountenancing influences of theonline world.