Paul Laurence Dunbar's "We Wear the Mask" and His Facade of Opinions

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.

However, the comparison between these two masterpieces shows two different aspects of society and community life. It shows how one community can manipulate other as well as how the society misjudges an individual on the basis of his/her appearance. Although each of these masterpieces shares distinctive emotions, yet both these poems seem interconnected and interrelated. Dickinson shares with the reader her thoughts about affected fame and fake glamour that people love so much; on the contrary she loves being “nobody”. On the other hand, there is sensitive and frustrating poem of Dunbar who communicates bigoted and biased behaviors that an entire community thrashes on another community. In Dunbar’s work, there are cultural conflict, ethnocentrism, group loyalty, dismay and too many other

put a mask on his face; a mask is more easily killed and forgotten” (Weisel 192).

The people we see every day are not always who they appear to be. Our family, friends, peers, work associates, and even our own self’s change who we are sometimes to cope or to seem better off than we are. We put on “Mask” to show the person we want to be seen as and often times people wear more than just one. In Flannery O’ Connor’s, “Good Country People” many of her main characters wore mask. They each had their own reasons that they chose to conceal their real identity. Nevertheless, the characters in O’Connor’s short story wanted to hide their true persona’s or deceive other people. Sometimes it was merely done to cope with their tragic pain and in other cases it was done to deliberately take advantage

Determined to find exactly what altered masks can do to an identity, an experiment involving 18 female college students and a clinical trainee was conducted. Gergen’s intentions were to “find the factors of an individual’s choice

In Dunbar’s We Wear the Mask it is showing how Blacks are agreeing to wear the mask but underneath that mask they are planning. This is shows when he says “Nay, let them only see us, while/ We wear the mask.” Dunbar is displaying how Blacks only wanted white people to see them with the mask on and they don’t want to be seen making plans on how to overcome discrimination. But by the end Blacks are taking off the mask to show their fight. This can be paralleled with Still I Rise because Angelou is more in your face and it shows how she has ripped the mask off and is speaking her mind. The speaker has power and confidence to overcome discrimination. This is exemplified when Angelou says “Did you want to see me broken? /Bowed head and lowered eyes?” The speaker is mocking white people in saying how Blacks should act, but really they are done conforming to what Whites want and fighting for equality. In both poems the mask shows the evolution of Blacks and how they overcame

“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.

Equality’s Mask A mask is something that covers all or part of the face, worn to hide one's identity. A mask can also be defined as anything that disguises or conceals a person or an object. People often use masks because they do not want others to think poorly of them.

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

Throughout the whole play the actors hide behind a mask, trying to figure out thoughts of the others while trying to hide theirs.

to believe the mask wearing is anything other than a burden, a dark shadow in a supposedly free society.

They exploit themselves differently in order to create their own illusion of themselves, whether it be through their dependence on men, money, or the idea of their true identity. Even though they all appear to be confident with the mask they have decided to wear, it ultimately uncovers an insecurity each of them have. Each character’s nature is fluid in order to feel accepted and to fit in with the changing society around them. One moment in the novel that resonated with idea of masks was when Salim was reflecting on his adventures in London and the difference between Americans and Africans. Salim stated, “It is stupid to talk of the Americans…They’re all individuals fighting to make their way, trying as hard as you or me not to sink” (152).

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

I have experienced what Paul Laurence Dunbar talks about in his poem. I have worn a mask that grins and lies. “We wear a mask that grins and lies.” I don’t always want others to know how I feel. For example, my mother and I had gotten lost on our way home from visiting my sister in college. It was a one lane road surrounded by forest in the middle of the night and the GPS stopped working. We were in the middle of nowhere and I could tell that my mom was freaking out. I could also tell that she was trying to hide her feelings. I put on a brave face and continued to reassure her, and myself for that matter, that we would be fine and that we should keep going. Eventually we made to the highway and we both breathed a sigh of relief. I agree with