Personification In 'We Wear The Mask' By Paul Laurence Dunbar

The literary device of the mask in Fahrenheit 451, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith and Lord of the Flies is recurring in each of the stories. The metaphoric mask is a both physical and symbolic object that alters the characteristics of an individual; usually the protagonist. The protagonist either gradually puts on or takes off the mask to change as a person. The mask itself acts how you would expect a real mask to work. A mask typically obscures the vision so that you can only see in one direction, and some obscure our vision to a blur. Despite that, the mask has a much deeper connotation in literature. The obscurity produced by the mask placed on one is not a true mask, but an event or decision significantly altering the traits of an individual. Such a transition is portrayed in literature as the putting on or removal of an actual mask. This makes easier for readers to understand, and creates a perceptible connection between the symbolism and reality. In the Lord of the Flies and Star Wars:

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.

Poetry has always been a mirror to see unseen emotions and to hear unheard thoughts. Magical words used in an artistic way allows the reader to feel what the poet is feeling, to listen what the poet is listening and to share what the poet is going through. The two poems “I’m Nobody! Who are You?” by Emily Dickinson, and “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar are two classical works of poetry. While Dunbar shares agonizing experience of an entire community, Dickinson shares her thoughts about individual characteristic and personality; in fact, she cleverly wins the case of an introvert. Both these poems are independent of each other in terms of thought as well as from literary perspective.

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

The author uses imagery in the poem to enable the reader to see what the speaker sees. For example, in lines 4-11 the speaker describes to us the

Throughout the essay “Our secret” by Susan Griffin, Griffin talks about a few characters’ fears, secrets and she gives us insights into these “secrets”. Griffin comes to realize her own secrets and fears by examining others. She relates to a few of the characters such as Himmler, Leo, Helene and everyone else even though she is different than all of them. The only thing that all of these characters have in common is that they all represent human emotion. Susan Griffin reveals that everyone has a hidden side to them and anything being showed on the outside could be fake or a false representation of themselves. “I think of it now as a kind of mask, not an animated mask that expresses the essence of an inner truth, but a mask that falls like dead weight over the human face.” (Griffin 237) This quote explains what she means about secrets being the barrier to others’ feelings and having this mask hides what you really feel on the inside.

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.

This idea of crafting a mask in literature is an old concept, though rarely discussed directly as it can even be seen in Corinthians where, as discussed by Stephan Joubert, Paul acts as, “…an encoded author…”, that can be typified also as, “…the ‘ideal portrait’ which the real author entertains to his flesh-and-blood readers” (Joubert). This concept of an author for an author is another concept that must be taken into account when the mask is discussed. Where Killingsworth suggests that the author crafts, “…the mask of the author…”, he also crafts, “…a mask for the audience…” (Killingsworth 34-35), Joubert argues that the mask of the reader is simply a result of the authors own mask as, “…a potential reader is expected to play in order to actualize the text…” (Joubert) reacting only to the text and crafting their own mask. While the reader also has a mask in Joubert’s theory, it is a reaction to the text, rather than them slipping into one of the authors design, the author only being able to influence their mask from an external and past, perspective. I implore both students and faculty to focus on these points throughout a work, as they will show the reader the perspective that the author is crafting. Weather to use this mask is up to the reader’s discretion, though from an analytical view, being bias only harms the process. Regardless, it remains important that the student not only identify but act upon these

“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.

During the reading of Ellison’s story masking is evident through the epilogue and chapter one. The theme of masking has different meanings in this story. One meaning shows masking as an unwillingness of acceptance to an individual, whom is not accepted in society. The narrator is masked because people see in him as what they want to perceive him to be. Masking, in this meaning, has a strong sense of racial prejudice. Whites rarely see black people as individual human beings, as showing during the battle royal. Another meaning of masking is suggestion of separation from society. While the narrator is in his hole, he is not there mentally, but he is there physically. He cannot be seen by society. He is masked because he chooses to remain away. Masking, in this meaning, is similar to hibernation, with the narrator’s choice to remain in his cave and think.

In the readings the the veil and mask both symbolize how people treat you when you’re different. In “The Minister’s Black Veil” it shows that the pastor wearing the veil that the people treat him in a rude even disrespectful way, and in the “We Wear the Mask” it also shows the disrespect given to people who are different. In these readings it shows that it’s easier to hide your emotions then share what’s really wrong. They both symbolize wrongs with the people not wanting to hear the full story before judging you, or even judging you at all. They both show a form of rejection for things that they feel necessary or can’t change.

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

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