We Wear The Mask Essay

The poem “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar talks about how African Americans put up an act and how they can seem ok about their social circumstances but behind it all, behind all their act there is hypocrisy and deception. This poem represents all the pretending, and the truth as painful as it can be hides behind it this masks. “We wear the mask that grins and lies, it hides our cheeks and shades our eyes” (1,2-37) In the poem the reader can have a sense of how they are not exactly doing a good job of hiding behind those masks and covering things up. They are feeling bad inside and can’t be honest about their feelings.

Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem, The Mask (1895-6), is a piece of propaganda which contributed to the ‘New Negro Movement’ by spreading their message and highlighting the need for representation in the media and in the political sphere. In society and the arts world there was a definite ‘colour line’ which black artists were trying to cross, but they were met with resistance from both middle-class African Americans who seemed to have internalised racism (Hughes, The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain, 1-2), and from the majority of white people. Therefore a lot of black artists’ work spoke of this struggle and was a tool used in the fight for acceptance - it was propaganda only because it had to be.

It speaks of how African Americans have to hide behind a mask that hides all their sorrow and pain. Dunbar questions why we have to wear the mask, “Why should the world be overwise, In counting all our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only see us, while We wear the mask.”(918). He speaks of how all of this should not be happening but in the end everyone is still hiding who they are and what they are really feeling. This poem could account for more than just African Americans. Everyone has worn a mask at one point in their lives but the real question is why? Temptations like in “Wife of His Youth” or to get away like in “’Member Youse a Nigger” have had major effects on people and their lives. Being an African American was a hard life for a long time because slavery and the civil war cause many deaths and many families to be broken

In the poem, “We Wear the Mask’, the narrator, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, expresses the pain African American experienced during the slave trade and how the slaves learned to suppress their emotions. The poem shows a contrast between African American’s social faces and their “bleeding hearts”. The tone of the poem is not a corrective tone, but rather an explanatory one. In considering the time period, it would make sense that the narrator would be careful about insulting the white community. In the first stanza the tone starts as explanatory in just speaking of the masquerade and state of oppression. Then the last two stanzas are very matter of fact. When the narrator sarcastically states, “Why should the world be otherwise”. Showing

What are masks? One usually thinks it is an object the individual puts on and takes off.

Rather than gifting African-Americans with the freedom they dreamt about and fought hard for, the Emancipation led to an achievement of an ambiguous status in society, which created a larger problem of race that W.E.B Du Bois discusses in The Souls of Black Folk. In order to introduce this problem, Du Bois employs the use of a metaphor that compares the post-war life of Blacks in America to being stuck within a Veil as most held distorted images of self and self-worth. His use of the Veil metaphor emphasizes the severity of the “Negro Problem” in an attempt to convince white Americans that, in order for real progress of American industry and culture to take place, the problem must be

We Wear The Mask was written in 1886 with post slavery America being the significant historical backdrop. In this poem, Dunbar explores the duality of experience of African American's at this time. The outward experience presented to the world at large - “We wear the mask that grins and lies” - versus the inward truth of suffering and turmoil - “With torn and bleeding hearts we smile”.

Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask,” exposes the deception of a grin and the truth that lies behind it and demonstrates that Gatsby used his materials and wealth to fit into society. In the poem Dunbar implies that the mask is a facade that conceals the true emotion of someone. Gatsby masked his true persona and identified himself wearing a mask of wealth and materials. The mask gives power to the powerless but at the same time it allows people to live within a lie.

The lyric poem “We wear the mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar is a poem about the African American race, and how they had to conceal their unhappiness and anger from whites. This poem was written in 1895, which is around the era when slavery was abolished. Dunbar, living in this time period, was able to experience the gruesome effects of racism, hatred and prejudice against blacks at its worst. Using literary techniques such as: alliteration, metaphor, persona, cacophony, apostrophe and paradox, Paul Dunbar’s poem suggests blacks of his time wore masks of smiling faces to hide their true feelings.

The poem We Wear The Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar conceals the pain and suffer of slaves in the 1870s. Paul Laurence Dunbar created this poetry around the exact time period were former slaves was seeking civil rights and equality in America. Dunbar symbolism of the mask focused towards one’s true feelings underlying the unhappiness, disparity, and hopelessness. Furthermore, it brought to light how slaves would hide their affliction to show their perseverance towards the white oppressor. I believe that Dunbar displayed the mask as two-sided by portraying that hiding the truth as wrong and others viewing hiding the truth as the best to do.

Masks and alternate identity is a major theme in Mishima Yukio's Confessions of a Mask. The narrator believes that throughout his youth, he had been playing a role on a stage to hide his real self. However, contrary to what the narrator claims, throughout the novel, he is not playing the role of another personality. He is simply hiding. It is only in the conclusion, when the when the war is over, and the need for order and principle and everyday life is restored, that he finally sees the creation of his other identity – the masculine figure that conforms to the society's idea of men.

In the poem “We Wear the Mask”, Paul Laurence Dunbar directs his readers more towards the African American community during the period of slavery and even in his own lifetime. He goes as far as talking about the trials and tribulations the people of color had undergone, but he made sure to share to his readers in this poem; the way Blacks had kept their sanity and composure through the time wear discrimination, prejudice, and inequality was at its peak, which was to wear the “mask”. “We wear the mask that grins and lies, it hides our cheeks and shades our eyes” (1-2). These first two powerful lines in this 15-line poem, implies how Black’s would hide behind false smiles or better yet, “pretend faces” to hide their true feelings and expressions

The “mask” in both Dunbar’s poem “We Wear the Mask” (1897) and Maya Angelou’s version “The Mask”, is a metaphor for the face they would present to avoid consequences of how they truly felt about racial injustice. However, these versions of the poem were written in different time periods with different styles, but their theme is the same. Dunbar’s version was written in the late 1800’s after the Civil War. This period was turbulent for African Americans, although they were free, they were socially repressed and kept from economic advancement. Whereas Angelou, wrote her version in modern day, with a lyrical style.

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 enjoyed reading “We Wear The Mask”. It was fun to analyze and break down the poem. I could relate this poem is many ways. I have felt the need to wear a “mask” in many social settings. One example would be when I first started going to church.