Paul Laurence Dunbar's We Wear The Mask

In “We Wear a Mask,” the speaker is speaking about wearing a mask, but not a real mask, just facial emotions that are a lie, “We wear the mask that grins and lies.” This reminds me of the movie, “The Butler,” because Cecil, the butler, has to learn to act as if the room was empty, and he was never to show his emotions or speak his mind. In the movie, there was a time when he was the one who was being served and not the server, but then he could see the mask that they had to wear for the other people to see. That’s why this text reminds me of the Civil Right Movement, because even after the American Civil War had settled the issue of slavery, white Americans still looked down upon African Americans. The blacks were help and butlers, those who took care of white people in their society, but were paid for it, so they couldn’t be called slaves, but because the whites still looked down on African Americans, they didn’t care about their lives or how they felt. It’s things like this that led to the Civil Rights Movement, because things still weren’t fair between whites and blacks. This text just shows the view from the other side, it’s a view from someone who had to please the whites by not being human, by hiding their emotions and anything they

The theme of masks is a significant theme throughout the book through the book. In all war people use

The poem We Wear the Masks by Paul Dunbar is an example of how people hide their feelings due to what others think of them. Like in the book To Kill a Mockingbird, the colored people in town are stereotyped due to their color and looks. The poem states, “We wear the mask that grins and lies, it hides our cheeks and shades our eyes” (Dunbar). When people are stereotyped they hide their feelings to make others happy. Wearing the mask is a symbol of how people cover themselves to get away from their 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

I chose the topic of this mask, based off the boys improper and confused relationship with Piggy. The theme of this mask, is discrimination. It stood out to me how unfair the boys treat Piggy, they view Piggy as powerless and having no sense of command. It also felt like the boys are confused with Piggy, because of his superego personality. He was raised by adults, and acts like one. This makes Piggy hard to relate with the boys and often leaves them frustated and confused. I feel like everyone once had a time in their life where they felt mistreated, and not having a opportunity to express their point of view. Therefore, we feel meaningless along with neglected, and are overpowered by a group of people which we simply can not overcome.

“Like circus performers, we smear on makeup to become someone else. Far beyond applying a little lip gloss or hair dye, our mask attempts to cover up who we really are. Our mask attempts to cover up who we really are […] what we’ve been through, what we know to be important, and what we are afraid to share with others”. (O’Leary, 36) John O’Leary focuses heavily on the concept of taking off our masks in his inspirational book, On Fire: The 7 Choices to Ignite a Radically Inspired Life. What O’Leary means by this analogy is that we should all break the barriers which we have erected to protect ourselves from the world, walls that were built after being hurt, experiencing something traumatic, or perhaps after being betrayed. However, such walls oftentimes do not benefit ourselves in the way that we may wish. Instead, more often than not, our masks do the opposite, and they isolate us from what we as humans need most: friendship, companionship, and love.

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.

Many individuals are often alienated from society. One of many causes can be racism. The alienation caused by racism can affect individuals and society. Due to their race, they were discriminated and led to racial inequality. This can all be depicted in “Incident” by Countee Cullen, “ A Black Man Talks of Reaping” by Arna Bontemps, and “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar. In “Incident”, a young African American is called a racial slur because of her physical appearance. Also, “A Black Man Talks of Reaping”, describes how a black man is discriminated and face racial inequality. Lastly, in “We Wear the Mask” shows how blacks had to hide their true identity because they were colored and did not fit in society. In all three text of Cullen, Bontemps, and Dunbar all show how racism can make an individual feel alienated.

An ideal display of the mask is found in Charles Chestnutt’s, “The Passing of Grandison.” In this story, Colonel, the slave master thought that his servant Grandison would on no account try to escape if permitted to go on a journey with his son, Dick. In fact, the Colonel recommends that Dick take Grandison along on his travels rather than Tom, who Dick was trying to take at first. “What’s the matter with Grandison?” suggested the colonel. “He’s handy enough, and I reckon we can trust him. He’s too fond of good eating to risk losing his regular meals; besides, he’s sweet on your mother’s maid, Betty…” (594) This passage shows the Colonel’s confidence in Grandison as a faithful servant, and illuminates the

Wearing a mask isn't always wearing you. Throughout time people have been wearing mask’s. For example people used it to protect themselves, hide from someone else, they can use it for religious reasons or even to be happy. An example of this is when the jewish people were hiding from the germans. or In my dad's a liar he was is protecting his kid from knowing the truth that they were broke.

In Paul Laurence Dunbar's “We Wear the Mask” poem he uses different types of rhetorical patterns. On rhetorical pattern he puts “we wear the mask” in the poem three times. Paul used this as a rhetorical pattern because first of all it’s the title and by reading or being heard we wear the mask, is trying to catch the audience attention by repeating those four words. We wear the mask could be attended to african Americans because he's a African American himself, or just people in general. Whatever the intended audience is, Paul is letting them know we wear the mask meaning that we are not acting who we really are and instead we're pretending to be someone we're not.

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.

In Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem “We Wear the Mask,” Dunbar uses the figurative wearing of masks to present a theme of denial of one’s identity in favor masks. Dunbar is highly critical of masks as they place heavy societal pressure upon the individual who chooses to hide their feelings and emotions. Dunbar utilizes symbolism to convey the results of the societal pressure placed upon individuals who wear masks. Pressure created by these masks is shown throw the symbolism present throughout Dunbar’s poem. In the poem, Paul Laurence Dunbar connects images of internal sadness and pain to the wearing of masks and the pressure said masks create upon the wearer.

We Wear the Mask 1. The mask symbolizes one hiding emotions or in other words, lying in a way. The mask is used to say that while the people felt one thing, they showed another. 2.

Contrary to his belief, the narrator does not have a mask on. Although the narrator believes in a misconception that he is ‘playing the role of a boy,' when in fact, what he considers to be a mask is simply his body and his male appearance. The narrator is never in a real need to ‘play a role' because nobody really actively tries to find out who he really is. His peers, based on his appearance, all assume that he shares the same sexual orientation as they do.