Themes Immortality Dana Schwartz

Identity and Disguise in Dana Schwartz's Immortality

Thematic Claim: Disguise as Survival and Rebirth

In Immortality, identity is not an essence but a survival tool — a mask that can be put on, discarded, or reforged when the old self becomes too dangerous or constraining. Jack Currer becomes Jack Ellis to evade the hangman’s noose; Hazel Sinnett dons men’s clothing to move freely through a hostile city; Princess Charlotte abandons her title and fakes her own death to escape an unwanted marriage and live with the woman she loves. Each transformation is driven by necessity, yet each also carries a cost: the loss of the previous self, the burden of secrecy, and the loneliness of living a lie. Schwartz argues that in a world where birth, class, and gender determine one’s fate, the ability to reinvent oneself is the ultimate act of defiance — but also a reminder that the self we show the world is always, in part, a performance.

Three Acts of New Identity

1. Jack Currer’s Resurrection as Jack Ellis

After being hanged and surviving a miraculous resurrection (a gift of the Tincture), Jack cannot return to his old life as a resurrection man in Edinburgh. He wakes in a pile of corpses, escapes naked, steals a horse, and eventually joins the Royal Navy under the alias Jack Ellis. The alias is more than a name — it is a whole new biography. He tells Hazel that he was “the captain’s steward” and a hero in a pirate battle, losing his eye in the process. When he reappears at the Carlton House ball in Chapter 20, even Hazel does not recognize him at first: his scar and eye patch have physically rewritten his face. The alias allows Jack to be alive in a world that believes him dead, but it also distances him from everyone he loved. His reunion with Hazel is tense because he cannot immediately shed the defensive shell of “Ellis.” The disguise protects him, but it also isolates him, and only when he confesses his full story in Chapter 22 does he begin to reclaim the intimacy of being Jack again.

2. Hazel Sinnett’s Male Disguise

Long before Jack’s reappearance, Hazel has already learned the power of disguise. In the prequel Anatomy, she dressed as a man to attend medical lectures. In Immortality, she again adopts men’s clothing when she needs to navigate London alone — for instance, when she meets Jack at the harbor in Chapter 26, she is “dressed as a man … in trousers, with her hair tucked into a hat and the hat’s brim pulled over her face.” Disguise is for her a practical necessity in a society that does not allow women to be surgeons or to travel unescorted. But it also becomes a metaphor for her professional life: she performs surgery in secret, hiding her skill behind the mask of a “respectable” woman. Her identity is always split between the female healer the world sees and the skilled anatomist only a few know. Unlike Jack, Hazel’s disguise is not about escaping death but about escaping the limitations society imposes on her sex. The tension between her public and private selves drives much of the plot, especially her relationship with the Prince Regent and her work for Princess Charlotte.

3. Princess Charlotte’s Faked Death

The most radical transformation is Princess Charlotte’s. Faced with the prospect of a forced marriage and the loss of her lover Eliza, she chooses to become a ghost. Working with Hazel and Jack, she stages her own death by substituting a lookalike corpse and then flees England disguised as a servant. Charlotte does not simply change her name; she surrenders everything — her title, her family, her nation, her dog (reluctantly). She becomes a private citizen in Bavaria, living with Eliza as her “maid.” The act of faking her death is, in Hazel’s words, “killing Princess Charlotte in order to save her life.” The disguise is total: Charlotte must learn to stop acting like royalty, to perform humility and anonymity. Schwartz presents this as both a tragic loss of identity and an exhilarating liberation. Charlotte trades her public self for the chance to be a real person — someone who can love openly without the weight of the crown. The symbolic objects associated with her (the blue dress she leaves behind, the jewelry she gifts away) mark the shedding of her old skin.

Symbolic Connections

Three key symbols deepen the theme of identity and disguise:

  • The Missing Pinkie Finger: Each member of the Companions to the Death (Marie‑Anne, Byron, Beecham) has sacrificed a finger as part of their initiation. This bodily mark is a permanent disguise — a physical reminder that immortality requires the loss of a complete, original self. Hazel is offered the same choice but refuses, insisting on keeping all her fingers for surgery. The pinkie becomes a symbol of the price of transformation: you cannot become something new without cutting away part of what you were.

  • The Tincture of Immortality: The Tincture is the ultimate disguise of self: it freezes the body in time, allowing the drinker to perpetually play the role of “the same person” while everyone around them ages and dies. Yet it also forces them to hide their true age — Beecham pretends to be his own grandson, Voltaire “retires” from public life. The Tincture is a chemical mask that lets the wearer outlive their own story.

  • The Arsenic-Laced Green Wallpaper (from the prequel Anatomy): While not directly present in Immortality, its legacy haunts the theme. Arsenic was used to create beautiful colors that slowly poisoned those who lived with them. It is a metaphor for how a beautiful disguise — a lavish room, a royal title — can conceal a deadly truth. Charlotte’s royal life is itself a kind of wallpaper: lovely to look at, but slowly killing her spirit.

Complexity and Contradiction

Schwartz complicates the ideal of reinvention by showing that every disguise exacts a toll. Jack may be alive as Ellis, but he carries the trauma of his hanging and the loneliness of his secret. Hazel’s male disguise works, but it also forces her to lie to the very woman (Charlotte) she is trying to save. Most strikingly, Marie‑Anne Lavoisier — who herself lives behind the mask of a “widow” while secretly steering British politics — punishes Hazel for hiding Charlotte’s survival. The Companions, who claim to want to guide humanity, are revealed as manipulators who would rather see a princess dead than lose control. Identity, the novel suggests, is not just a private costume; it is a battlefield where power, love, and survival intersect. The characters who succeed are those who can hold onto some core of self even as they change their outer form. Hazel, for instance, never stops being a surgeon, even when she is pretending to be a man or fleeing to America. Jack/Hazel’s final marriage in Saint Pancras — performed with a ring made from a surgical needle — symbolizes the healing integration of their many selves.

Study Questions and Answers

  1. How does Jack’s alias “Ellis” both protect and isolate him?
    Answer: The alias allows him to live and to build a heroic reputation in the Navy, but it also prevents him from being recognized by Hazel and from reclaiming his old relationships. He must confess his true story in Chapter 22 before he can truly reconnect with her. Disguise saves his life but costs him intimacy.

  2. Why does Hazel refuse to take the Tincture when offered by the Companions?
    Answer: She refuses because she fears the “permanence” of eternal life — it would force her to watch everyone she loves die while she remains unchanged. More important to her identity is her role as a healer and her love for Jack, which she values over immortality.

  3. In what way does Princess Charlotte’s faked death mirror Hazel’s own situation?
    Answer: Both women must shed a public identity to pursue a private, authentic life. Charlotte abandons her crown to be with Eliza; Hazel leaves behind her surgery practice and her reputation to sail to America with Jack. For each, the old self must “die” for the new one to be born.

  4. What does the missing pinkie finger symbolize about identity in the novel?
    Answer: It represents the permanent scar of transformation — the idea that becoming someone new requires sacrificing a part of one’s original self. It is a physical mark that separates the Companions from ordinary mortals and reminds them (and us) that identity is never cost‑free.

  5. How does Marie‑Anne Lavoisier embody the dark side of disguise?
    Answer: She uses the Tincture to appear as a young widow while secretly directing political events through the Companions. Her disguise is not about survival but about control. When Hazel uncovers the truth about Charlotte’s survival, Marie‑Anne tries to kill her — revealing that for some, disguise is a weapon, not a refuge.