Clothing Of Masks In Paul Laurence Dunbar's They Wear The Mask

In the poem We Wear the Mask by Paul Dunbar, we are given a message of hiding identity and or pain due to a situation, but this poem can also have many different meanings. This is shown in Lord of the Flies. It shows various characters putting on a mask to survive. For example, we see a clear example with Jack due to him physically wearing a mask. He uses the mask to change himself due to the self-hate produced when not being able to become who he wanted, a leader.

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.

Literally, people wear “masks” to cover their faces. In the poem, “we wear the mask” to hide our true feeling. For example, on the first line “We wear the mask that grins and lies, it hides our cheeks and shaded our eyes…” (Dunbar, 527) shows that do not be deceived by that mask because it is full of lies. “They wear a grinning mask that hides their true feelings. This image of the grinning mask evokes an ancient and ritual African mask used for ceremony, hiding the eyes and face of the wearer with an impersonal expression. In that case, the mask carries a divine dignity, something superhuman, mysterious, and perhaps implying a terrible retribution to the enemy in the future.” (“Overview: ‘We wear the mask’ ”) Plus, by wearing the masks, people cannot see the emotion shown on the face. People also cannot look into each other’s eyes to understand the thoughts. According to Huff, “To ‘hide our cheeks’ means to stiffen the face so as not to reveal genuine emotion, and to ‘shade our eyes’ has the triple meaning of adopting an indirect or deferring manner, of avoiding the eye contact that implies a shared understanding of the situation, and of internalizing society's artificial barriers so that an individual will not embarrass himself or others by appearing to desire things that are clearly beyond his reach.”

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.

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 novel The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas and the poem “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Dunlap, the authors highlight how hiding one’s own identity comes with consequences. For example, in We Wear the Mask, by Paul Laurence Dunbar, the author shares his frustrating experience of having to wear a mask and hide who he is. For example, in the first stanza, the author writes, “We wear the mask that grins and lies,” and that “it hides our cheeks and shades our eyes” (1-2). Here, the author is saying how people put on a happy appearance to hide how they truly feel. However, putting on a mask to cover how you feel is a problem because it results in no change for the better.

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.

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

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.

In Richard Corey, by Edwin Arlington Robinson, the narrator observes and contrast themself with the seemingly perfect Richard Corey. In We Wear The Mask, by Paul Laurence Dunbar, the narrator describes people struggling to keep up a happy appearance, despite their inner turmoil. Both of these works present the theme of a misconnection with one's private self and social self; however, they present them from different perspectives.

Masks were one of Native American’s earliest creations that served as a source for anonymity. Primal instincts were exposed as though the individual was part of an outer world where he could reveal the likeness of an animal. Anonymity is a quality that individuals, while remaining unknown, protect when they freely express their initial thoughts and actions. In William Golding’s 1954 book Lord of the Flies, a young group of British schoolboys struggles to receive immediate rescue from a tropical island. Character Jack Merridew, who is the leader of a boys’ choir, devotes his time to hunt pigs during their stay at the island, yet he constantly disguises himself with a war paint mask when he hunts to overcome the self-consciousness of killing

 On the way to this crescendo, Dunbar continues to add depth and breadth to the mask metaphor. “Cheeks and eyes are being hidden, and in “mouth with myriad subtleties” At this point in the poem there is little to lead the reader

Hiding our faces from human guile “We Wear the Mask” is a poem written by Dunbar Paul Laurence the American poet and novelist. This poem is a very relatable and sad. The poem talks about the mask that people wear to hide their emotions and personality. It also talks about slavery and African Americans who wear masks to hide their fear, sadness, and pain. In this poem the slaves do not just wear a mask to hide their feelings, they smile and sing to appear perfect to society.

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.

Ultimately, since Dunbar avoids specifically mentioning blacks and their suffering, with the history of this poem in mind, this poem could stand as a lament on behalf of all of the individuals who were forcefully made to wear a “mask” just as a girl who tries to hide her pregnancy from her parents, or as a boy who