This essay examines the nature of identity in John Guare's Six Degrees of Separation, focusing on Paul's famous claim that imagination is "the passport we create to take us into the real world." The paper argues that identity operates on two levels simultaneously: as an imaginative projection of potential selfhood and as a performative act tailored to an audience. Through Paul's deception of the Kittredges, the essay explores how subjective realities can be constructed, accepted, and shattered, and how the film's postmodern themes connect human relationships, racial perception, and the fragility of individual worldviews.
The paper uses a "both/and" analytical framework: rather than choosing between imagination or performance as the basis of identity, it argues that both operate simultaneously and that each depends on the other. This technique — sustaining complexity rather than collapsing it into a single answer — is a hallmark of strong literary analysis and is well-suited to postmodern texts that deliberately resist fixed meanings.
The essay moves from the abstract (what imagination means for identity) to the concrete (Paul's specific deception of the Kittredges), then zooms back out to postmodern and social implications. It closes by drawing a lesson about open-mindedness from the narrative's resolution. This funnel-and-widen structure is an effective way to balance close reading with thematic argument across roughly seven paragraphs.
In Six Degrees of Separation, Paul states, "I believe the imagination is the passport we create to take us into the real world." He seems to suggest that the essence of identity lies in what we can imagine ourselves to be. Identity in the play also appears, at other times, to be a performance we put on for others. Can it be both? And what constitutes "true" identity for the other characters?
Identity is a complex concept, and Paul's claim that imagination forms the basis of identity is certainly compelling. We must first imagine a potential way of being before we can achieve it. In many cases, what is achievable is largely a function of our imagination — people can often accomplish far more than they believe possible, and it is common to underestimate one's actual potential. In this sense, imagination becomes the limiting factor. The statement that imagination is the passport that takes us into the real world is entirely accurate in this context.
However, as Paul clearly illustrates in the film, the ability to perform is also a fundamental part of identity and one's engagement with the real world. If an individual's imagination is sufficiently powerful, then identity can equally be shaped — and limited — by the capacity to perform in various situations. Paul is obviously a con artist, but an extraordinarily talented one. His imagination, combined with his expressive ability and breadth of knowledge, allows him to construct a perception of reality among his targets that has no basis in actual fact. Yet it is not entirely clear how that constructed perception of reality should ultimately be judged.
For example, if Ouisa and Flan Kittredge believe the role that Paul is playing, then that role constitutes their reality — at least until it changes. They sincerely accept everything Paul tells them, and they have no reason to doubt him for much of the film. This seems to indicate that reality is subjective and that multiple realities can coexist simultaneously. Had the Kittredges never discovered the truth, Paul's fiction would have remained their reality indefinitely; they would have had no alternative version to believe. The film thus distinguishes between an internal, subjective reality and an external, objective one.
Gleiberman, O. (1993, December 10). Six Degrees of Separation. Retrieved from Entertainment Weekly:
Hub. (N.d.). Film Review and Criticism: Themes in Six Degrees of Separation. Retrieved from Hub Pages:
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