Pain And Torment In 'We Wear The Mask'

African American literature from the Colonial era through Reconstruction shows how African Americans were always treated differently and many of them had to either ignore the awful things the white people said to them, or they had to hide behind a mask of someone everyone tells them to be. One of these incidences of having to just ignore society was in the folktale “’Member Youse a Nigger” when John spend his days keeping quiet and doing only the things that would set him free. While the story “The Wife of His Youth” by Charles Chestnutt and the poem “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar were about the effects that society has on ‘colored’ people. Both stories showing how people feel it is okay to pretend to be someone that they aren’t

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

Masks have held countless uses and meanings throughout history. Masks have been used in plays, like those of Shakespeare, traditional dances, social gatherings, even as a form of casual or corporal punishment. Although masks have several different uses in different cultural situations, the meaning of the masks is generally the same. Masks are used to conceal an appearance and assume the identity of another. Metaphorically, masks can be used to hide feelings, to protect oneself, and to block out the outside world. Many of these examples are shown in Art Speigelman 's Maus.

The masks act as a way for the guests to block their guilt from being exposed after leaving people beyond the four walls to fend for themselves. “It was towards the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad, that the prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence” (Poe, Par.4). The invitees put on masks to symbolically obscure themselves from the fate of the “Red Death”. Poe is stating that the people are falling into the same arrogant way of thinking as Prospero by trying to escape disease. The party-goers are also hiding from themselves and each other because they selfishly tried to make themselves immune to the disease while leaving the outside world to fend for their lives. The masks being worn also helps give the sense of confidence while being “hidden”, especially Prospero. “ ‘Who dares’-- he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near him-- ‘Who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and unmask him-that we may know whom we have to hang, at sunrise, from the battlements!’ (Poe, par.11). As soon as Prospero’s eyes landed on the mummer, there was a surge of confidence that shot up within his body in a split second. The mask upon Prospero’s face caused him to act in a boastful and cocky way to try and defeat the mummer, despite

The lyric poem “We wear the mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar is a poem about the African American race, and how they had to conceal their unhappiness and anger from whites. This poem was written in 1895, which is around the era when slavery was abolished. Dunbar, living in this time period, was able to experience the gruesome effects of racism, hatred and prejudice against blacks at its worst. Using literary techniques such as: alliteration, metaphor, persona, cacophony, apostrophe and paradox, Paul Dunbar’s poem suggests blacks of his time wore masks of smiling faces to hide their true feelings.

Paul Laurence Dunbar, dispatches the cold troubles of African Americans in the lyrical poem, "We Wear the Mask." In this poem, Dunbar links imagery, rhythm, rhyme, and word choice to in order to institute a connection to the reader. From reading the poem, one can infer that Mr. Dunbar is speaking in general, of the misery that many people keep concealed under a grin that they wear very well. But if one were to go further and take the time to research Mr. Dunbar’s selection of this piece and the era of which this poem was written, one would come to understand that this poem focuses entirely on Paul Laurence Dunbar’s viewpoints on racial prejudice and the struggle for equality for the African-American’s of his time period. Though this

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

This proves Gergen’s thesis, “I doubt that people normally develop a coherent sense of identity, and believe that to the extent that they do, they may experience serve emotional distress” (172). By having several masks or selves, is how we are able to adapt to changing society. With these multiple masks we are able to achieve acceptance and know who we are as individuals. Throughout life we must adopt masks when facing different circumstances; it is through these masks that we see how we change as individuals. If we spend our lives trying to stick to one mask, we can find ourselves to feel lost, depressed, or invisible. Change is good; however we must still stay true to ourselves when using masks. They are a part of us as individuals but they are not us.

Different people put on a different mask depending on what “part” they are playing . Whether that be with peers, friends, teachers or parents you change because of the surroundings. Masks make you feel untouchable while you wear them, but when you take the mask off you feel monstrous about the acts committed while wearing your disguise. The power masks hold cannot be explained, they can turn the innocent into the barbaric. Masks have been worn throughout history. A good example is the German Nazi Swastika that symbolizes World War Two. The Nazi’s Swastika resembles their mask of genocide, deception, and tragedy. They wore this on their left arm and felt domination. They did not feel remorse for the inhumane acts they committed while hiding behind “their masks.” Once the war had completed, many Germans felt disgrace for their actions. The novel Lord of the Flies, by William Golding was published at about the same time World War Two was occurring. Golding took ideas from the annihilation of the war and put it into the context of his story. Some of his ideas were inspired from the cruelty of war. William Golding was a British novelist, playwright, and poet known for his award winning book Lord of the Flies, published in 1954. In Lord of the Flies, most of the boys abandoned the civilized society they had always lived, and resorted to being savages.

Paul Laurence Dunbar and Langston Hughes were considered to be early black poets during the twentieth century around the period of civil right movement. “We wear the mask” and “Theme for English B” were written in 1895 and 1951 respectively. Even there is approximately 50 years gap between these two poems, the theme that these two poems address is somewhat similar. Even though Dunbar uses symbols as figurative devices while Hughes uses Irony, they both have the same goal, which is to point out the racial issues within American society.

When given the thought, one makes the comparison that masks are used to describe our

We Wear The Mask was written in 1886 with post slavery America being the significant historical backdrop. In this poem, Dunbar explores the duality of experience of African American's at this time. The outward experience presented to the world at large - “We wear the mask that grins and lies” - versus the inward truth of suffering and turmoil - “With torn and bleeding hearts we smile”.

In the 1896 symbolic poem “We Wear the Mask,” Paul Laurence Dunbar suggests that people are apathetic to the pain and suffering of others making it easier for one to hide their troubles behind a mask than to confront them. In the beginning, Dunbar uses a spine-chilling tone as he describes the mask while utilizing strange diction to exhibit the deception and protection that the mask symbolizes. Dunbar continues his eerie tone and strange diction as he uses juxtaposition to show that despite the pain people feel the mask they wear gives them a smiling appearance because the world does not care to see people’s hearts in pain. In the middle Dunbar shifts to a sarcastic tone and somber diction as he asserts that the world does not care about the

In We Wear the Mask, the author’s purpose is to push the reader to feel something about the way things were in his perspective.

Dunbar opens his poem with “We wear the mask,” to draw in any type of