Book Review : ' The Passing Of Grandison '

In the online dictionary, masks are described as being “a covering for all or part of the face, worn to conceal one’s identity”. Andrew Lloyd Webber utilizes masks in The Phantom of the Opera, in such a way that really captivates the viewers and helps to highlight and hide certain aspects. Not only does he use the mask to shield the Phantom’s deformation, he also shows what kind of person the Phantom is with and without the mask, including his behaviour, and actions towards others.

In the poem, “We Wear the Mask’, the narrator, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, expresses the pain African American experienced during the slave trade and how the slaves learned to suppress their emotions. The poem shows a contrast between African American’s social faces and their “bleeding hearts”. The tone of the poem is not a corrective tone, but rather an explanatory one. In considering the time period, it would make sense that the narrator would be careful about insulting the white community. In the first stanza the tone starts as explanatory in just speaking of the masquerade and state of oppression. Then the last two stanzas are very matter of fact. When the narrator sarcastically states, “Why should the world be otherwise”. Showing

The “mask” in both Dunbar’s poem “We Wear the Mask” (1897) and Maya Angelou’s version “The Mask”, is a metaphor for the face they would present to avoid consequences of how they truly felt about racial injustice. However, these versions of the poem were written in different time periods with different styles, but their theme is the same. Dunbar’s version was written in the late 1800’s after the Civil War. This period was turbulent for African Americans, although they were free, they were socially repressed and kept from economic advancement. Whereas Angelou, wrote her version in modern day, with a lyrical style.

We try to hide our flaws, so we wear a mask to conceal our imperfections. We are hurt and unable to fully recover, so we put on a mask. We are a monster, so we wear a mask to hide our vile and devilish ways. We want to appear to okay, even though inside we are dying a little bit each day, so we put on a mask. Wearing a mask is a lot like being a wife and a mother. A wife and mother is many other things, such as a cook, a nurse, a taxi driver, a cheerleader, a lover, a daughter, a worker, and maybe even a student amongst other things. We juggle our self between all these different persona’s. In O’Connor’s, “Good Country People” many of her characters wore mask to conceal the things they didn’t want seen. Hulga pretended to be a rude, uncaring brat to hide her hurt she felt from losing her leg at an early age. Manley Pointer disguised himself as a Bible salesman to take advantage of people, when he was nothing more than a wolf in sheep’s clothing. While the matriarch of the family, Mrs. Hopewell insisted that everything was fine. Everyone has their own way of getting through tough situations and circumstances and these country people proved they were no different from the rest. “In one of her essays, “The Regional Writer” Flannery O’Connor spoke of, “the particular crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet.” (Driskell and Brittain, The Eternal Crossroads). These such characters in this

All throughout history humans have always tried to gain power over each other. In America it was the white people who believed all others were inferior and should be treated as such, thus enslaved these people. Many slave owners felt that it was their duty to take care of these slaves because they were not mature enough to take care of themselves. “The Passing of Grandison” By Charles W. Chesnutt Grandison is a slave owned by the Owens family. The plantation owner thinks Grandison is dumb and incapable of being independent from the plantation. Thus Colonel Owens thinks Grandison is a good choice to send north with Dick. Chesnutt uses limited third person point of view, dramatic irony, and situational irony to convey the message that people

A mask is meant to cover up what is really happening. The author provides with the character archetype of a leader with Jack. He fails with the choir and can’t handle being the leader of a mass group. The mask gives him a way to escape the same and be a different person and to show that he can be the leader. In the book the author states “The mask compelled them” while Jack is taking his group to hunt for a pig.

The famous author Charles Chesnutt presents changes in characters to survive during the pre-civil too post-civil war. One example is in “The Passing of Grandison” slaves would act uneducated to deceive and gain their masters trust and then change and show their true personality. Many stories set in this period represent how hard it is for change to happen within people or a community. Another example is the “The sheriff’s children” a small southern town known as Branson county is one of the most conservative states in the union. The town is very simple almost primitive. One example of their simplicity is they live off their farms. They would be considered poor but there is no upper class to compare them to the county is so poor. In most

The main power of a mask is to change someone’s identity and to transform them into a new person. When Ralph sees Bill, he says that “this is not Bill (183).” The boy behind the mask is Bill, but the mask disguised him and created a new person, a new savage. The mask turns Bill from a normal British boy into a savage. The mask is what Bill uses to become a new person and to disguise himself. The mask gains power because it is removing the boy’s old personality and replacing it with a new, more savage one. When Ralph goes to visit the savages, he sees “Jack, painted and garlanded, sitting there like an idol (149).” Before painting himself, Jack was not chief, but after he masked himself, he is treated like royalty and idolized by all of the other boys. The paint that Jack uses to mask his identity does not change him, but rather creates a new person out of him. He is no longer Jack, but the leader of the group of savages. This is the goal of the mask, to remove civilization entirely. Without

Celebrations, Rituals, dancing and parties have been a part of human existence for hundreds of years. Masks have been a large part of our growth and used by every culture according to historical records. Masks are symbols of great power

Which is also the role the play in Dunbar’s poem. The mask is a way to represent the ways in which people hide and lie about what they are actually feeling underneath. Dunbar is also trying to inform us that masks are a way of self-preservation. The speaker of this poem seems to be very laid back and calm while discussing this, he seems to be at peace or have accepted that this is the way in which things are. It is also never clearly stated if the speaker is male or female, it is just assumed that the speaker is a “he”, this leaves it open to a universal voice, so that it is not specifically limited to any one individual or group of individuals feeling this way.

Charles W. Chestnutt's short story, The Passing of Grandison, demonstrates the impact the slave owners had on their slaves. At first look the story was very disquieting. Sprightly Dick Owens was extremely worried on ensuring he gets the love and affection of Charity Lomax. Charity, Owens source of price, was extremely worried about what somebody could furnish her with. The story spins around the way she won't be infatuated and wed Dick Owens unless he accomplishes something bravely. A man ought not be pursued just in light of his bravery. It appears that he was being utilized by Charity and she was a lady searching for a mainstream man. The impact slave owners have on their slaves is shown in three ways. First, they were happy with their

An example of Burton's use of masks is in the film Edward Scissorhands. Edward’s heavy makeup and costume makes him seem to be the monster of the film, but it is Jim that looks like a normal guy who is the monster. Burton signifies that just because you look a certain way, in this case evil, doesn't necessarily mean that you are. The most obvious example however of showing the duplicity of the human nature is in the film Batman Returns, both Batman and Catwoman have split personalities and with the use of literal masks they are able to transform in to their alternative selves and create their own rules inside their own world. Characters like Batman and Catwoman are outsiders because of their dual personalities that are too complex. When Batman becomes Bruce Wayne he also wears a mask in a way, as a way of protecting himself. Tim Burton really looks at the idea that we wear masks to either show or hide the many facets of the human

Masks conceal the truth from the people who look at them. They use color, designs, and frills to hide the flaws beneath. In literature, stage, and film, we see characters wearing masks all the time, just not always in a literal sense. The most complex and intriguing characters wear these kinds of masks, to hide their own flaws and scars from the outside world. In A Streetcar Named Desire, almost every character has a mask they wear, to conceal the truth from the people around them.

“Shapeshifting requires the ability to transcend your attachments, in particular your ego attachments to identity and who you are. If you can get over your attachment to labeling yourself and your cherishing of your identity, you can be virtually anybody. You can slip in and out of different shells, even different animal forms or deity forms.” - Zeena Schreck, religious leader of the Sethian Liberation Movement. In the poem “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar the reader should learn that individuals feel the need to wear a mask to change their personality into the more ideal individual which surpasses their confidence, fear, insecurities, and emotions. This poem develops the realities about self-image and how it makes individuals act in society.

In other novels read and analyzed specifically in this class, which provide additional examples of characters displaying types of facades, are Tayo in Silko’s novel Ceremony, Henry in Valdez’s production of Zoot Suit, Sula in Morrison’s novel Sula, and Akiko Ueno in Ozeki’s novel My Year of Meats, just to name a few. In Maus mainly, Spiegelman portrays the Jewish mice wearing pig masks in order to blend in with the surrounding Polish society depicted as pigs. Spiegelman does this for many reasons, but one in particular is to expose the destructive effect. In reality, people walk, dress, and talk a certain way in order pass as another type of person, or to feel acceptance among peers, such as teenage boys and girls. All characters display some kind of inner and outer struggle wearing a sort of façade due to conflicts encountered, thus forcing them to morph themselves as a way of survival. In actuality, no one is wearing a physical mask but rather an adaptation by change in behavior, manner, and appearance to blend in with the rest of mass society.