The Disguise: Gender Performance and Identity in Behind Every Good Man

What Is the Disguise?

In Sara Goodman Confino’s novel Behind Every Good Man, the disguise is the set of male clothing, mannerisms, and social identity that Gabriella Johan adopts at age five. To ease her father’s grief after her mother’s death—and because her face reminds him of his lost wife—Gabriella cuts her hair, borrows a gardener’s boy’s clothes, and presents herself as “Gabriel Johan, Father’s son.” The disguise is more than a costume; it includes a bound chest, a masculine walk and handshake, a deep voice, and a complete renaming. For nearly two decades, this performance allows Gabriella to live as a man in a world that denies women education, legal careers, and independence.

Where the Disguise Recurs in the Story

The disguise first appears in Gabriella’s childhood. Evidence from the novel’s opening letter shows the precise moment: “I cut off a great deal of my hair … dressed in the boy’s clothes … I looked exactly like a little boy” (chapter 1). Her father, after a stunned silence, agrees to call her Gabriel, and the “silent agreement” is struck. The disguise then recurs throughout her life:

Childhood and education: She is taught reading, arithmetic, and business instead of domestic skills. She attends university as Gabriel, living in private rooms with a trusted servant, Stephens, to maintain the secret.
Social life: At parties and balls, she must carefully manage her behavior—admiring women’s dresses without revealing her true feelings, and occasionally breaking hearts when a girl falls for the charming young man.
Fencing and law: The disguise enables her to join the Sword Masters Club and become an unbeaten fencer, then to practice law as a litigator. She notes that her skill with a blade “made me a keen litigator.”
Friendship with Lord Eric Alvert: For four years, she maintains the male identity even as she falls deeply in love with Eric. The disguise becomes a barrier to confession.
The duel and its aftermath: To avoid humiliating Eric, Gabriella agrees to the duel but refuses to fight back. She is wounded and presumed dead. In the final scene, she appears dressed as a woman for the first time, “with her hair down, wearing a dress,” uncertain of the future.

How the Disguise’s Meaning Changes

From Loving Sacrifice to Empowering Identity

Initially, the disguise is a child’s pure act of love. Gabriella says she wanted to make her father’s sorrow go away, and she believed she had “dispelled a great darkness that had loomed over the house.” For her father, the disguise works: when he sees Gabriel instead of the daughter who looks like his dead wife, “the sorrow gone like a winter storm blow out to sea.” In these early years, the disguise is a gift, a debt she feels she owes because her mother died giving birth to her.

As Gabriella grows, the disguise becomes a source of strength and freedom. She excels at university, becomes a skilled fencer, and builds a successful legal career—achievements she could never have as a woman in the nineteenth century. She admits, “I was far too happy, far too satisfied with the life I had crafted.” The male identity is no longer just a burden; it is a chosen life that offers agency and respect.

From Comfortable Mask to Painful Prison

Yet the disguise eventually turns into a cage. When Gabriella falls in love with Eric, she realizes that her male persona prevents her from expressing her true feelings. She writes in her letter, “despite my clothes and my manners, despite my talk and my profession, I cannot hide the heart of the woman I am that beats inside me.” The disguise that once gave her access to the world now locks her out of intimacy. She becomes jealous of Lady Bishop and tries to sabotage that relationship—not out of malice, but out of desperation to keep Eric near.

The duel forces the final transformation. Gabriella chooses to be wounded rather than harm Eric, and she reveals her secret in a letter. The physical wound—a sword through the shoulder—literally punctures the disguise. After the duel, she sheds the male clothes for good. The train journey dressed as a woman marks the beginning of a new, uncertain identity. She says, “Now I guess I’ll have to learn to cook,” a statement that is both humorous and poignant, signaling that she must now navigate a world she has never known.

Connections to Characters and Themes

Characters

Gabriella / Gabriel: The disguise is her entire life’s performance. She is both the heroic Gabriel who saves her father and the vulnerable Gabriella who longs to be loved for who she truly is. The story traces her arc from voluntary disguise to forced unveiling.
Gabriella’s Father: His grief initiates the disguise. He accepts the silent agreement and never speaks of it, but on his deathbed he leaves her a note “freeing me from my life of the choice.” His act of release shows that even he understood the disguise was ultimately a sacrifice.
Lord Eric Alvert: Eric knows only Gabriel until he reads the letter. His reaction—calling her “the finest man I have ever known” and mourning her as both man and woman—shows that the disguise has shaped a genuine bond that transcends gender.
Stephens: As Gabriella’s trusted servant, Stephens enables the disguise to continue through university and adulthood. His loyalty and practical help (bringing whiskey, fetching the letter, arranging the train) make him a silent partner in the performance.
Nannie Arjonte and the servants: They support the initial disguise, helping with binding and hair-cutting. Their love and secrecy are essential to maintaining the lie.

Themes

Gender Identity and Disguise: The novel explores gender as a social performance. Gabriella learns to walk, shake hands, and speak like a man; she binds her breasts and adopts a masculine name. The disguise questions whether identity is innate or constructed, and whether one can ever truly shed a performed self.
Sacrificial Love: From the first line of the letter—“I love you”—to her willingness to die rather than fight Eric, Gabriella’s love is consistently sacrificial. She gives up her birth identity for her father and later gives up her life as Gabriel for Eric.
Freedom versus Societal Expectations: The disguise grants freedom—an education, a career, financial independence. But it also burdens her with secrecy and loneliness. After shedding the disguise, she faces a future constrained by her sex.
Guilt and Redemption: Gabriella feels guilty for her mother’s death, which drives the initial sacrifice. The duel and her confession are a form of redemption, as she finally tells the truth and begins to forgive herself.
Honor and the Duel: The duel is a masculine ritual that both reinforces the disguise (Gabriel must accept) and ultimately breaks it (Gabriella lays down her sword). Eric’s honor is satisfied, but his sorrow reveals the emptiness of that code.

Study Questions and Answers

1. How does Gabriella’s disguise change from a child’s act of love to a source of both empowerment and imprisonment?
Answer: At age five, Gabriella adopts the disguise to ease her father’s grief, and she feels proud of her cleverness. As she grows, the disguise enables her to study law, fence, and build a career—giving her freedoms denied to women. Yet it also prevents her from expressing her love for Eric and forces her to live a lie. By the time of the duel, the disguise feels like a trap she must escape, even if it costs her life.

2. What role does the physical body—especially binding and wounds—play in the symbolism of the disguise?
Answer: Gabriella binds her breasts with strips of muslin, a painful daily reminder of the disguise. The binding hides her womanhood but also forces her to endure physical discomfort for the sake of performance. The sword wound she receives in the duel is a literal puncture of that performance—blood reveals her mortality and vulnerability. After the wound, she no longer binds; she wears a dress, and her hair is down.

3. How do other characters’ reactions to the disguise—Gabriella’s father, Eric, and Stephens—illuminate different aspects of its meaning?
Answer: Her father is grateful but never fully comfortable; his deathbed note releases her, showing he understood the cost. Eric, after learning the truth, honors her as both the “finest man” he knew and as a woman, suggesting that the disguise does not negate the real person. Stephens, who helps maintain the secret, treats her with unwavering respect, indicating that the disguise can be supported by loyalty and love.

4. In the final train scene, why does Gabriella say “now I guess I’ll have to learn to cook”? What does this line reveal about the future?
Answer: The line is ironic and self-aware. It signals that Gabriella now faces a world where women are expected to perform domestic roles, not practice law or wield swords. She has no idea how to be a woman in society because she has spent her entire life as a man. The future is frighteningly uncertain—she must learn an entirely new identity from scratch, and cooking is a symbol of that daunting task.