Personal Identity In Paul Laurence Dunbar'sWe Wear The Mask?

Our identity is comprised of inner qualities and outer representations of self. It consists of innumerable defining characteristics that make up the whole of who we are in any given moment. These fragments of self include our sexuality, gender, and sense of belonging to a particular culture, nation, religion, family, or some other group. Our identity includes our looks, personality, beliefs and fears. Each individual in society assigns themselves a particular role, whether it be as a mother, brother, retiree, performer, sportsman or as a part of their occupation, a doctor or lawyer. Often one’s entire sense of self is consumed by

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.

When something consumes you such as a society and tells you what you have to be, how do you avoid the mask? The poem “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Dunbar and the novel “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury both use a mask as a symbol. The mask symbolizes how closed off people are, and how they hide themselves and their emotions from society. These “masks” are worn to protect yourself from the cruel and treacherous society that has been created. The new society has taught people how to cover up their true emotions with these fake smiles and shining eyes.

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

There is no denying that every person needs ti have a persona. One’s personality is developed through the different environments, cultures, and even obstacles faced in order to create the type of person we are. When going through the process of finding our identities, we are faced with aspects of ourselves that we do not wish to be defined as. According to the author, Jennifer M. Volland “Stay: The Archetypal Space of the Hotel,” she emphasizes psychologist Carl Jung’s idea that we each have two sides to ourselves that we are either accepting or unaccepting as she states, “the ‘persona’ which is the outward appearance a person presents to the world, and the ‘shadow,’ the subconscious aspects of that person’s personality — that is, the denied parts of one’s self.” We are able to see parallels of Jung’s argument of what are the components of a person’s identity throughout David Wallace’s work, “Shipping Out,” of how the cruise ship internally exploits workers and manipulates their passengers while externally trying to maintain a facade of what the Zenith stands for.

“In Defense of Masks”, by Kenneth Gergen regards that it is not possible for humans to adequately find a coherent self identity without an aftermath. Gergen states, “to the extent that they do, they many experience severe emotional distress” when trying to do so (172). He refers to Erik Erickson, a psychologist who speaks about how self-alienation can result due to the pressures of society to individuals with various masks of identity.

In today’s society masks are used depending on the specific social group we interact with. Most people tend to have various masks or personalities when they are with specific people; such as with their friends, family, and during work. In Kenneth Gergen’s essay “In Defense of Masks,” he claims that people are not apt to find a specific mask to which they can be true too however, having various masks could be important because it allows people to adapt to various social groups . I disagree with Gergen’s claim and counter argue that utilizing only one specific mask with whomever we interact with will help anyone live a genuine lifestyle. There are various categories that fall into masks; for instance, makeup, clothing, religion, and appearance. Many individuals acquire masks because they seek approval from others or simply because they are mimicking someone. Once someone adapts to having multiple masks, it is difficult to figure out our true identity due to the variety of personalities that are being portrayed.

“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.

Have you really understood what made you who you are? Let me clarify the answer by saying that we’re a mix of the personal and environmental factors that corresponds. Meaning, the persona sculpts us, just the same way as the environment. I’m convinced; Kate Chopin explores this in her 1892 short story Désirée’s Baby. In the story, the racist attitudes, and the prejudice society stimulates Desiree’s selfhood. Chopin questions whether we should jeopardise our self-dignity to preserve our identity?

A lot of people in the world struggle with self-identity and understanding who they are, and the people and events around them in their daily life provide a sort of fill-in for the gap that exists inside of them, whether it’s in the form of jealousy or admiration. Instead of relying on themselves and making an impact on the world based on who they are themselves, these people often undermine their own identity and sabotage their lives and those around them by focusing on, obsessing over, and essentially depending on other things that only appear to be a part of them. In the novel A Separate Peace, the author, John Knowles, brings up this subject of the risk of dependency on self-identity through the main character and protagonist, Gene, and

A person’s identity is influenced by how you view yourself and how society views you. In Jonathan Lykes poem This is a Siren, and the short story The Bear that Wasn’t by Frank Tashlin, both authors shine a light on how great of an impact society can have on an individual’s identity. Society has already established different stereotypes for each individual which causes everyone to perceive others in a certain way without truly getting to know them. This can cause an individual to change the way they perceive themselves in order to be accepted by society and to fit in it’s expectations of that individual. “This thing called perception, that gives people the opportunity for acceptation, or on the flip side, to be a circle of rejection…” (Lykes 2010) Here, Lykes talks about how we perceive each other can either make us accept one another or reject one another. However, in the end, it is up to the individual to decided if they are going

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.

In the year of 2000 when I was born many thing were happening. Things happen happening locally like money doesn't matter (“Toledo Blade”). Success was also happening early at Wynn elementary. A big national problem was happening too, two hijacked planes hit the World Trade Center. That changed many people's life and many people died that day. “It was a war against our way of life, a war of terror, and our response would dominate the decades and years to come” (“Historical Events”). Also cost of many products we need were very cheap in the 2000s like the price of milk was $2.88. Not just the bad but also happening internationally was the Olympic Games opened in Australia (“Major World Events”). Which the Olympic Games were always a big thing

I was born on February 11, 1999, during the year we would enter the new millennium, and everyone panicked about the Y2K bug. While some prepared to party away the 20th Century, and others drained away their savings to hunker out the “Y2K”, Bill Clinton was acquitted by the Senate in his impeachment trial (February 12th), Eminem released his first major record album ‘The Slim Shady LP’ (February 23rd), and My Heart Will Go On by Lauryn Hill wins a Grammy (February 24th). Other events at this time included Kurdish rebels taking over embassies and holding hostages across Europe after Turkey arrests one of their rebel leaders (February 16th), and the apparent assassination of Uzbekistani President Islam Karimov at the government headquarters (February

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