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Critical Analysis Of We Wear The Mask By Paul Laurence Dunbar

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Critical Statement: In “We Wear the Mask”, Paul Laurence Dunbar employs the shift in the symbol of the mask to elucidate the tribulations imposed upon a isolated community. In the first stanza of the poem, Dunbar emphasizes the mask as a facade which forcefully obscures the authentic sentiments of a segregated community. The stanza introduces the masks’ objective and prowess in deception. Furthermore, it investigates the effects of the mask on its host. The author writes, “We wear the mask that grins and lies, / It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,— / This debt we pay to human guile; / With torn and bleeding hearts we smile” (Dunbar 1-4). The utilization of a personifying element that humanizes the mask, in the phrase, “We wear the mask that grins and …show more content…

Moreover, the role of the mask is signified as a false interceptor of perception and translator of emotion. Similarly, the notion of the mask’s motive is demonstrated through the continued implementation of personification, in order to clarify the mask’s identity as an abstract entity, in the sentence, “It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,”. The mask is also depicted as an entity forced upon a specific populace as a form of humiliation, as exemplified through Dunbar’s use of words like “debt” and “human guile” being operated in conjunction. These words communicate the believe that selfish intelligence is responsible for the creation of a “debt” or contract, which binds the community into unpleasant situation they are unsatisfied with. Dunbar also incorporates a cynical tone through the application of negatively connotated words such as, “lies”, “hides”, “shades”, “debt”, “guile”, “torn” and “bleeding”, that represent a disagreeable side of our species. Moreover, these words also convey the emotions of suffering and dissatisfaction behind a forceful “smile” that the mask places upon them. The deceptive mask that is personified as

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He wants people to avoid thinking that developing only one true self identity is healthy. A mask allows an individual to see his or her full potential by not having a true identity. Masks have multiple identities based on the certain situations and environments (circumstances) the person is having(undergoing). I agree with Gergens interpretation (assertion) and his psychological

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The poem illustrates humans hiding themselves in a certain way in which people think of themselves. Jim struggles greatly with fitting into society and remain social order. As the poem states “we wear the mask that grins and lies” (Dunbar) the quote significance is that individuals lie to hide themselves and the mask is our shield. Similarity between Jim and the poem is very similar by hiding who you really are to survive in the world. Jim has to hide who he is because he is a runaway slave from Miss Watson.

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However, when you take away the mask, the person will try to keep up the reputation they have in public in order to be socially accepted by others. After analyzing what this quote means, I agree with the main idea of it. I feel that when people aren’t hiding behind something, they

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As I read, Paul L. Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” I was interested in how he described what a mask represents. It is true that a mask was used to hide a person’s pain, emotion, or mood before the day known as Halloween developed. I love how Paul refers the use of the masks as a black or white person’s escape from other peoples’ worried faces. No one can ever understand what someone else is going through. People can never truly speak their truth or let out their suffering.

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African Americans were not treated fairly during slavery. African Americans are just like everyone else and deserve the same right as everyone else, no one should be treated differently by their skin color. Frederick Douglass and Paul Dunbar both talk about slaves and being treated unfair. They both use personal experience to support their ideas. Paul Laurence Dunbar uses conflict in “we wear the mask” to get his point across about African Americans being treated unfairly after slavery ended.

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Throughout your whole life you may notice several people wear masks. Not literal masks, but they do wear masks. They put up a fake persona to hide their true selves. While reading The Great Gatsby, I noticed F. Scott Fitzgerald introduces several characters such as Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, and Tom Buchanan, who put up masks instead of dealing with their pain. James Gatz is one of the more obvious characters who puts on a mask in this novel.

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The novel To Kill A Mockingbird exposes the reality behind the mask that people wear to protect themselves from ideas and thoughts that they have but don’t want to accept because they are scared to be vulnerable to society and possibly themselves. Throughout Harper Lee’s creation, though the mask is not directly shown or stated, it is implied in many situations. Maycomb county wears a mask that narrows their vision so they are unable to see other people’s side of things. The upper class white families in Maycomb are the most prone to this mask regarding to the fact everyone is below them, especially the black community.

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Such personification mirrors Dunbar’s use of figurative language, which relates the poems in more ways than one. Dunbar touches on human features such as cheeks and eyes in his poem but also uses a spiritual element to advance his point of view. Furthermore, “We Wear the Mask” was written in 1896; a period in American history that was post-slavery but still had widespread discrimination. The spiritual connotation within Dunbar’s poem can allude to African American churches and/or the hymns slaves sung on plantations. Nevertheless, the struggle of African Americans is a symbol of both presented

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In Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem, “We Wear the Mask” the speaker wears a mask to hide his internal suffering because he does not want the rest of the world to think he is weak. This poem relates the prejudice black people face against white people. The speaker starts the poem with the lines, “We wear the mask that grins and lies,” (1). Here he describes the kind of “masks” that he wears.

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The oldest found mask is from 7000 BC, and experts believe it was used for rituals and ceremonies. Masks have an important cultural context in history, and as the use of masks has progressed, humans have adopted masks into other forms of entertainment and festivities. In present times, with better understanding of human psychology, society has come to understand that people wear emotional “masks” as well. Masks have a somewhat important context in both Golding’s Lord of the Flies and Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask”. Both works describe masks as a way to hide one’s true self from everyone; Dunbar, however, depicts masks as an emotional barrier to cover up one’s true emotions or feelings, while Golding uses masks as a physical object to hide behind.

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Masks hide the truth and obscure the facts. They form a barrier between what is real and what is an illusion. Yet, during from the moment blacks were brought to this continent in chains, to the moment they were granted civil rights in the 1960’s, masks were a method of survival. Another way of life for African Americans was the practice of signifying. Signifying is mostly seen in the black literary tradition as a means for African Americans to take back power from the white through misinformation and deception.

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In this world, an individual has two masks: the mask is the way the individual chooses to express and appear to family and close friends and the second mask is the way the individual expresses his or her self to the outside world. In some cases, people have many different masks for the different groups of people he or she interacts with. The masks people wear can hide and reveal aspects of them, in other words, one-mask reveals who the individual truly is and the other is who the individual wishes they were. In Joyce Carol Oates’ short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Connie, the main character, wears two masks, which coincides with the contradictory themes of the story, fantasy versus reality.

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But by doing this, these people hide parts of themselves from others, making themselves seem one-dimensional. They hide behind these masks they form, and conceal themselves from the terrifying, outside world. Duality is then manifested from this side hidden from society, and for good or for bad, people learn these hidden aspects of themselves. Although others may not yet know of these hidden sides of subjects, one

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