Fake it till you make it
Dumplin'Fake it till you make it is an expression for acting as though a desired identity or capability is already within reach, in the hope that practice will make it feel more real. The novel gives the idea two sharply different measures: Bo Larson finds that acting against his fear helps diminish it, while Willowdean Dickson doubts that pretending can reconcile her with herself.
Bo’s Use of the Idea
Bo explains the expression through two examples of identity and fear. When a child saw him as Indiana Jones, the child saw someone other than the boy who had mishandled plays in a basketball game or spent his days playing video games. That brief change in how he was seen offered him a chance to inhabit a different version of himself.
His example with Willowdean is more intimate. He admits that she terrified him when they first spoke and still does, but says that acting as if she did not has made the fear recede. For Bo, pretending is not simply a disguise: repeated behavior changes his actual response. The gap between outward action and inward feeling narrows through practice.
Willowdean’s Doubt
Willowdean recognizes the pattern in herself but cannot take Bo’s confidence as a ready-made answer. She thinks she has spent much of her life acting like the person she once decided she wanted to be, without knowing when that performance began or who that imagined person was. Now the act seems to be fading, and she is unsure whether she likes the person beneath it.
The distinction turns the expression into a problem rather than a promise. Bo’s experience suggests that performance can help someone grow into a less fearful self; Willowdean’s reflection suggests that an idealized role can also obscure the self it is meant to help. She wishes for magic words to bridge the distance between who she is and who she wants to be, but concludes that the familiar formula is not working for her. The expression therefore captures both the possibility of change through action and the limits of pretending when it leaves that inner distance unresolved.
