Why People Wear Mask Analysis

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.

In movies such as The Purge, the masks give off a chilling presence. This kind of behaviour has been observed in Native American tribes as well. They would use war paint to intimidate enemies, as well as show rank and different traits they demonstrated in battle. Red was known to symbolize strength or success. In Lord of the Flies, masks are used to separate Jack’s group from Ralph’s group. When Jack appears at Ralph’s camp, he is naked except for a belt. Usually, one would be embarrassed or ashamed to be dressed like that in front of a crowd, but he was “safe from the shame or self-consciousness behind the mask of his paint and could look at each of them in turn”(Golding 140). This passage demonstrates the empowerment that can come from having one’s face hidden. Jack and the hunters used their “war paint” to scare or intimidate Ralph’s group as well. When the hunters did raid Ralph’s camp, they were depicted as “demoniac figures” (Golding 140) which exudes a chilling undertone. This scared the littluns as well, so they “fled screaming” (Golding 140). Both the diction of this passage and the reaction of the littluns demonstrate the sometimes frightening nature of masks. Overall, along with other movies or books, the use of paint in Jack’s tribe and the reaction it evoked brings forth the idea of masks being used in an intimidating