Paul Laurence Dunbar We Wear The Mask Essay

It speaks of how African Americans have to hide behind a mask that hides all their sorrow and pain. Dunbar questions why we have to wear the mask, “Why should the world be overwise, In counting all our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only see us, while We wear the mask.”(918). He speaks of how all of this should not be happening but in the end everyone is still hiding who they are and what they are really feeling. This poem could account for more than just African Americans. Everyone has worn a mask at one point in their lives but the real question is why? Temptations like in “Wife of His Youth” or to get away like in “’Member Youse a Nigger” have had major effects on people and their lives. Being an African American was a hard life for a long time because slavery and the civil war cause many deaths and many families to be broken

The structure of this poem is 3 stanzas with all the lines in the poem except Lines 9 and 15 in iambic tetrameter. In this metric pattern, a line has four pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables, for a total eight syllables. The internal structure of the poem is the narrator talking about the mask the African American people wear and the oppression that hurts them. Then the second stanza is sarcastic and negative towards the idea that it will ever change. Then the last stanza shows that they cling to Christ and the journey will be long.

Essentially, the person of this poem is asking why should the world get the right to know why they are truly upset, and potentially use it against them; instead, have pride, hold your head up high, and put on your “mask.” In doing so, the literary term paradox comes into play. This poem is about the true feelings of blacks being hidden behind masks, when also the poem itself hides the fundamental issue of racism from even being mentioned – that alone is a paradox because the poem has a mask on as well. This poem can also be seen as a paradox because this so called “we” is supposed to be wearing a mask when in fact they are expressing their feelings and becoming vulnerable, aka – no more mask.

Alliteration and metaphors are two major elements of this poem. The repetition of consonant sounds and alliteration occurs throughout the poem. All of the lines strongly use the repetition of consonants and alliteration except for lines two and seven. In addition to that, the controlling figure of speech in this poem is a metaphor. It is strongly articulated in the first line, and as the one continues to read, it is amplified and extended throughout the rest of the poem. The metaphor compares mask of Line 1 to the fabricated emotive facades that African-Americans had made use of in order to avert provoking their oppressors.

The figurative language in a given poem usually correlates to the theme and, nevertheless, gives it personality in some way. In “We Wear the Mask,” the figurative language is darker, ordinarily connecting it to the theme of hiding your true feelings behind your “mask”. The writer, Paul Laurence Dunbar, uses personification the most in his poem, moreover, creating an image that correlates with the theme. Personification most easily creates an image that the writer can shape to connect with the theme. Dunbar uses this personification in a darker way, to connect with the more serious theme of hiding your feelings behind your imperceptible “mask”. “We wear the mask that grins and lies, it hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,” is personifying the mask (Lines 1-2). Since this poem is mainly about hiding behind our alleged mask, it seems reasonable that Dunbar would personify the mask. Since he did so, the mask is given another level of depth that allows us to see the mask as the main object of the theme. The theme is developed by using this personification of the mask. Although diction and figurative language are important for developing the theme, they are not the only structure elements that can do

In the Jim Crow South as depicted by Richard Wright and Eudora Welty, race is a matter of visibility. For black southerners, forever under the looming threat of white surveillance, to be seen is to be to be in danger. While Welty and Wright existed on opposite sides of the white gaze, the authors make contact as they explore and critique the barrier it created between white and black southerners, and the violence that resulted from this divide. In Welty’s “A Curtain of Green” and Wright’s “Down by the Riverside,” the surveyors become the surveyed, and a new perspective is born that resists the dominance of the white point of view.

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”.

(Color had defined the place of black life as that of below white life; and the black man, responding to the same dreams of the white man , strove to bury within his heart his awareness of this difference because it made him lonely and afraid. Hated by whites and being an organic part of the culture that hated him, the black man grew in turn to hate himself that which others hated in him. But pride would make him hide his self-hate, for he would not want whites to know that he was so thoroughly conquered by them… (266)

With the words “We wear the mask that grins and lies,” Dunbar tells us that the mask is used for pretense and disguise and in the next line, he said “It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes.” This also

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

Within a variety of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poems audiences can easily pinpoint and identify a ‘mask’ that he portrays. Dunbar was known for his double voice and use of dialect in some of his work. Even though he did not live through the slavery era Dunbar was still accustomed to the discriminatory treatment from the white folk, while also hearing stories from his parents that actually worked on slavery plantations. With being a poet Paul was well aware that he needed to appeal to all audiences. He especially tried appealing to the white community, but at the same time Dunbar tried reaching out and secretly relating to the black society through manipulating double vision and wearing a mask. Some people would argue that in specific pieces Paul

In the poem "We Wear a Mask," Paul Laurence Dunbar's choice of rondeau form reinforces the theme of the poem with its distinct structure and rhyme that sways the authors writing to conform to the rondeau style. The ending tone of voice of this poem also lends to the reinforcement of the poem's theme. The theme of this poem is that we all wear masks and conform because we are humans and that is what is expected of any human. Henceforth, the theme of "We Wear a Mask" is reinforced through Paul Laurence's choice of poem form, rondeau, and his ending tone.

Black Americans were forced to wear masks to avoid showing their true feelings. Living behind a mask is nothing but a disguise – a disguise of hurtful truths that hid behind faces of African-Americans and that is not the way to live. As communicated through the people, African-Americans wore masks that grin and smile but behind all those grins and smiles, hearts are torn and souls miserably tortured. Furthermore, the speaker tells us that wearer of the mask wants freedom from the people who are full of guile and force them to wear mask just to lie. They need to become free from all this mistreatment and discrimination. They want to have the same rights and equality as the rest of the people in this world. It is important to note that when you specifically know Dunbar’s background, you are able to make this specific meaning about the plight of African Americans, however this poem also has a universal nature. As we have already established, we all wear masks at one time or another and so the feelings communicated by the speaker of this poem resonate with

Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask,” by many people, is viewed as a portrayal of the “mask” that all people wear to hide their inner self. The itself is “written from within black experience,” as stated by Peter Revell (On “We Wear the Mask”). Dunbar was an African American Writer in the time of Jim Crowe laws, so his story can ultimately be seen as a “mask” worn by his people during this time to hide not only their suffering, but the shame of their past as well. Gossie Hudson describes the poem as a way of Dunbar “revealing himself by the way he concealed himself” (On, “We Wear the Mask”).He revealed that, though he wore a mask of pride and happiness, he was full of sorrow.

The experience of Dunbar and many African Americans at the time shows one reason why masks are powerful metaphors, or that an object or image is comparable to something of the same quality. The mask in the poem "We Wear a Mask" is a