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An Explanation Of Paul Laurence Dunbar's We Wear The Mask

Decent Essays

While many renowned philosophers discuss and create extensive hypothesis about our true place in today’s society, I stick to the idea I absorbed when I read the poem “We Wear the Mask”. We live in a world where people put more value to material gifts and not consider the purity of humble acts. We live in a world where every moral principle has been altered into hideous events of selfishness and wickedness. We live in a fake world where commitment represents a breakable promise, or a hug can easily turn into a mortal stabbing. We put on our masks and spend 24 hours pretending to be a completely different individual. The poem “We Wear the Mask” prepares a very humanistic dissertation of what it is to be someone we are not, and why we do it on …show more content…

He follows with the sentence “It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes”. Cleverness abounds in these few words as Mr. Laurence brings to the table the effects of being sad or simply crying as a result of a negative event. Our tears run through our cheeks, while the expression in our eyes tell the true story behind the sadness. To end the first stanza, he talks about a situation that can be applied to our love and personal life. “With torn and bleeding hearts we smile”. As the author goes on, he continues throwing deeper phrases with clear and solid messages. He expresses that no matter how awful we can feel, we always put on the fake mask and smile! In the second stanza, Mr. Laurence discusses a more humanistic topic as he now includes the people that interact with us every day. “Why should the world be over-wise, in counting all our tears and sighs?” The purpose of this question is to state the fact that other people do not care about your difficulties mainly because they have enough with their own. The solution again is very simple: wear the mask! To end the poem, Mr. Laurence uses a couple of words that project pain and suffering. “Cries”, “tortured souls”, “the clay is vile beneath our feet, and long the mile”. However, no matter how loud the cries can be, or how vile the clay is beneath us, or …show more content…

I cannot recall the countless times I have worn the mask in front of strangers, relatives or my love partner. I can strongly relate to the speaker when he expresses that projecting an erroneous impression of ourselves is a “debt we pay to human guile”. It may seem nonsense, but sometimes you really feel that cheating on ourselves –in a harmful manner- is the way to prove we are strong and stable. I have been with my girlfriend for almost five years and both of our masks have been present in quite a few events. Once, during a pretty serious fight we decided to take a time out to think things through. Actually, we took that time to put on the masks and pretend we were not indispensable in each other’s life. I could appreciate her effort trying to hide her wet cheeks and her devastated look (line 2) when we crossed in the hallway. Also, I could feel the thorns beneath my feet (line 13) hurting my entire soul and body while pretending I was doing quite awesome. Sadly, we agreed to think about the fact that we did not care about each other’s problems like Mr. Laurence stated in lines 6 and 7. Worst decision we could ever make! Even though you would often feel like that is the best solution to escape the problem, you will be lying to yourself and the person you truly

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