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We Wear The Mask Identity Essay

621 Words3 Pages

Hidden Identity
Imagine feeling like an outcast and not fitting in with society. Masking your own identity because of fear and insecurity. That is how the character feels in the poem, We Wear The Mask By Paul Laurence
Dunbar. In the poem, We Wear The Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar, Erik Erikson's theory of Psychosocial Development is shown through African Americans trying to fit in, in a racist society. Throughout the poem, We Wear The Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar, Dunbar shows to the readers that the character is struggling with their identity, this struggle connects to Erik Erikson's crisis of “Identity vs Role Confusion”. In the poem, the author states “We wear the mask that grins and lies. It hides our cheeks and shades out eyes” (Dunbar, lines 1-2). This quote provided the readers with information stating that the character is covering their identity. It shows that the character is afraid of who they are and want to change their appearance. Masking your identity connects to …show more content…

The main character throughout the poem shows the readers how they project themselves in a different manner to mask their identity and their insecurities. The author states “We smile, but, oh great Christ, our cries to thee from tortured souls arise” (Dunbar, lines 10-11). This quote from the poem shows how much the main character is hurting inside. It shows the readers how the character is not comfortable in their own skin. This makes the character question “Who am I?”. In Erik Erikson's theory of Psychosocial Development, in the adolescent age, the person or character questions themselves with their identity, and this is exactly what the character is doing in this poem. The character doesn't want to show their true identity to a racist society so they put a fake face

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“We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes-.” This quote is from the poem, “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar which is a poem about the struggle that Paul Laurence Dunbar’s family went through during their lives being enslaved. This quote represents the role that a mask can play in covering up true self. By wearing a mask, a person is covering up their unique features. Also, they are not letting anyone get to know them as well as hiding their persona from the public.

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People put on mask whenever revealing their genuine identity or behavior can cause issues. They are afraid of the aftermath that their actions might cause. This is the situation one can see in The Canterbury Tales, Piers Plowman, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight prologues. All of these literary works present different valuable societal issues. First in The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer gives us a description of characters and their flaws.

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Poetry has always been used to express one’s emotions and thoughts about the world. Emotions and desperation are the main vocal points of the poem, “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar. The poem, “We Wear the Mask” by Dunbar was written in the 19th century during a time when many African Americans were oppressed in the United States due to segregation laws but this did not halt Dunbar from gaining recognition from the poem while shedding light on the struggles of African Americans’ emotions. In, “We Wear the Mask” Paul Dunbar uses repetition, punctuation, rhyming scheme, enjambed lines, and end-stopped lines to indicate that people repress their emotions deep down, never expressing them leading them to crack under the pressure of society.

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