How Does Langston Hughes Use Of Figurative Language In We Wear The Mask

In “We Wear a Mask,” the speaker is speaking about wearing a mask, but not a real mask, just facial emotions that are a lie, “We wear the mask that grins and lies.” This reminds me of the movie, “The Butler,” because Cecil, the butler, has to learn to act as if the room was empty, and he was never to show his emotions or speak his mind. In the movie, there was a time when he was the one who was being served and not the server, but then he could see the mask that they had to wear for the other people to see. That’s why this text reminds me of the Civil Right Movement, because even after the American Civil War had settled the issue of slavery, white Americans still looked down upon African Americans. The blacks were help and butlers, those who took care of white people in their society, but were paid for it, so they couldn’t be called slaves, but because the whites still looked down on African Americans, they didn’t care about their lives or how they felt. It’s things like this that led to the Civil Rights Movement, because things still weren’t fair between whites and blacks. This text just shows the view from the other side, it’s a view from someone who had to please the whites by not being human, by hiding their emotions and anything they

The use of figurative language definitely adds to the poet's message, in a big way. Hughes asks "What happens to a dream deferred" and in that line he uses alliteration. He doesn't say what the dream was, but the reader knows he is alluding to the dreams of Black Americans because the title "Harlem" represents a community in New York City that is heavily populated with Black folks.

Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” depicts the world as a deceitful one. It shows society as one that often hides behind things to prevent reality from showing. It gives examples of how people attempt to hide their feelings and illuminates what is actually happening inside of them. The author uses symbolism, sound qualities, and figurative language to support the theme of people hiding their true self from the world.

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

"We Wear the Mask," a poem written by Paul Laurence Dunbar, uses personification in order to convey that "we" faces internal despair but externally, is forced to cover up pain and exasperation behind a facade of happiness and joy. The poem presents readers with a speaker who speaks in first-person plural, as “we” and never simply “I.” This clearly indicates that the speaker should be regarded as representing a particular or special part of society.. By using “we,” the poet establishes a collective voice, which places part of the emotional burden on the reader.

In this poem it is implied that everyone wakes up and chooses a mask from their “drawer”. By this I mean we wake up and choose which mood were going to show the world. “We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes” (Dunbar 906 lines 1-2). We wear the mask to hide the tears that fall from our eyes and roll down our cheeks. We put on a grin to make people think we are okay, but in reality it is a lie because we are broken inside. The mask could also be the frase “I am fine”. From an African American from the nineteenth centuries point of view “we” in this quote stands for the black community or others that go discriminated at the time. There is pain behind these masks that they wear. “This debt we pay to human guile, With torn and bleeding hearts we smile” (Dunbar 906 lines 3-4). “Human guile”

Paul Laurence Dunbar’s seemingly simple yet poignant poem "We Wear the Mask,” written in the late 19th century, gives an exceptionally insightful glimpse into what it meant to be a Black American of the time and a product of slavery. The poem’s focus is that of survival and addresses the importance of the “Mask” as a type of defense mechanism and means by which its wearers’ true self is concealed from the harsh and prejudiced world. The poem is an appealing and relevant work of art even in todays setting. Dunbar’s strategic use of metaphors, anaphora and personification throughout the poem are of the utmost importance in providing us with a sense of imagery and has a profound effect on the overall symbolism of the “Mask”.

The idea of the mask points to the duality that Blacks experienced in everyday life, Du Bois in his work The Souls of Black Folks also comments on this duality calling it “double consciousness” in which the African American is divided by two worlds- two identities- the African and American. DuBois also comments that as a result of this duality, many African Americans are forced to live behind a veil, much like the mask that Dunbar discusses in this poem. (Brown,

“We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar uses three major literary elements: metaphor, diction and rhythm, in order to illuminate the importance of the mask African Americans use. Word choice in this poem starts off as unsettling and sadening using words as, “grins and lies”, “hides”, “human guile”, “torn and bleeding”,as well as, “tears and sighs”. These words used in stanza one and two, show what the mask hides but also what that person is really feeling behind that mask of lies. In order to sustain peace and harmony, sometimes that mask needs to be worn, hiding true emotion. In the last stanza, the diction is switched to a hopeful and “rise up” type of attitude.

It is exactly seven years after the end of this war that the author of “We Wear the Mask” would be born. During the period that Paul Laurence Dunbar was born, the United States were still recovering and reconstructing from the Civil War, and besides of the Black Americans now are considerate “equals” by the law, racism continued very strong into their society. One online article stated that “the president Abraham Lincoln, his allies and generals in fact never believed that blacks and whites could live peacefully in freedom together. The reason is that even after the application of the 13th Amendment, African Americans struggle to be recognized as having the same national rights as White Americans” (Maria Sampaio, “Lincoln and Slavery: Not So Much to Heaven, Not So Much to the Earth.”)1. Knowing this, it is possible to understand the relevance on some of Dunbar’s main works.

As one of the first nationally-known African-American writers in the 19th century and a son of former slaves, Paul Laurence Dunbar believed in the importance of bringing awareness to the injustices in which revolved around slavery and racism overall. Throughout his multitude of writings two of his most acclaimed works Sympathy and We Wear the Mask convey just this through strong syntactical style as well as utilization of various poetic devices. Within the first work, Dunbar shows the interrelatedness of an oppressed African American man, himself, who feels bound and imprisoned by society as expressed through the analogy of a broken-winged bird in a cage. One of the most powerful lines within this text is “I know what the caged bird feels, alas!” Dunbar’s main idea is displayed through this statement as he suggests that he identifies with the pain of a lack of freedom which a caged bird feels. Although the reader is not given an explicit answer as to why, it can be assumed considering he was an African-American poet who often wrote about the struggle of his race, that his suffering is the result of his identity; the bird is suffering because it isn't free, and at the time that Dunbar wrote Sympathy, African-Americans were still living in an America bound by Jim Crow laws. Moreover, it can be inferred that in his decision of creating the title, while Sympathy does express the connection Dunbar feels with a caged bird’s emotions, it can also be seen as a call on his readers to

Within a variety of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poems audiences can easily pinpoint and identify a ‘mask’ that he portrays. Dunbar was known for his double voice and use of dialect in some of his work. Even though he did not live through the slavery era Dunbar was still accustomed to the discriminatory treatment from the white folk, while also hearing stories from his parents that actually worked on slavery plantations. With being a poet Paul was well aware that he needed to appeal to all audiences. He especially tried appealing to the white community, but at the same time Dunbar tried reaching out and secretly relating to the black society through manipulating double vision and wearing a mask. Some people would argue that in specific pieces Paul

“We wear the mask,” is about the mask we hide behind in society. Dunbar was an African American poet in 1890s, so he fought tons of discrimination. This poem was written during the end of his life when his health was deteriorating slowly. After all the stuff he went through, he was tired and it can be felt in the poem. He used that emotion when writing this poem to show what society really is like. Dunbar uses diction, symbolism, and rhyme to get his point across that we are all faking our reactions to others and how others judge us.

Racism is a major social issue in the poem “ We wear the mask”, by Laurence Dunbar. The reason that this is the social issue that I have chosen, is because some would consider this to be one of the most relevant issues that everyone in the world suffers through even to this day. In the poem, Dunbar writes about how african americans put on a metaphorical mask to show white americans that they are happy even though they are feeling the complete opposite. They’re pretending that they are really smiling to our faces so that they can hide the true despair that they are truly facing from us, because the world is supposed to be this perfect place. Racism is relevant in today's society in many different ways, but ways that are commonly shown

The speaker then continues with “We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,” (1-2) which symbolizes how the mask is grinning but the person hiding underneath is not. This image also gives us, as readers, a picture of what the mask is hiding besides the true feelings. “Nay, let them only see us, while…We wear the mask.” (8-9) this is the first moment of enjambment used which makes us, readers, ease slowly into the “we wear the mask” line. This makes that line stand out from the rest of the poem because you ease into it rather than continuously reading, it makes it have more of a meaning. The “them” used in that line could also be referring to the white American’s, although he did not specifically say it was.