We Wear The Mask By Paul Laurence Dunbar Essay

African American literature from the Colonial era through Reconstruction shows how African Americans were always treated differently and many of them had to either ignore the awful things the white people said to them, or they had to hide behind a mask of someone everyone tells them to be. One of these incidences of having to just ignore society was in the folktale “’Member Youse a Nigger” when John spend his days keeping quiet and doing only the things that would set him free. While the story “The Wife of His Youth” by Charles Chestnutt and the poem “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar were about the effects that society has on ‘colored’ people. Both stories showing how people feel it is okay to pretend to be someone that they aren’t

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

Before we pass on from this world it would be nice if we had left our mark, given our contribution, made our claim in the history of human civilization. Wouldn't it be wonderful to achieve such a goal? Wouldn't it be horrible to have attained that level of recognition and yet be recognized for things you deemed inferior? In the poem "The Poet", Paul Laurence Dunbar expresses his remorse at having written superior Standard English literature and yet only be known and praised for his Dialect works.

Paul Laurence Dunbar is another great poet of the Harlem Renaissance Era, Writing about equality and the lack there of for the African American brothers and sisters. His father served in the 55 regiment Army in Massachusetts when the war broke out between the North and the South inspiring young Paul to write several poems celebrating the role of African American soldiers in winning the Civil War and ending slavery. Paul’s mother fought hard and sacrificed much for him to be able to obtain a good education, he was the only African American in his class at Central High School where he excelled and had many friends. He became the editor of his school paper, was elected president of the literacy club, and was given the honor of composed and presented

The people we see every day are not always who they appear to be. Our family, friends, peers, work associates, and even our own self’s change who we are sometimes to cope or to seem better off than we are. We put on “Mask” to show the person we want to be seen as and often times people wear more than just one. In Flannery O’ Connor’s, “Good Country People” many of her main characters wore mask. They each had their own reasons that they chose to conceal their real identity. Nevertheless, the characters in O’Connor’s short story wanted to hide their true persona’s or deceive other people. Sometimes it was merely done to cope with their tragic pain and in other cases it was done to deliberately take advantage

This proves Gergen’s thesis, “I doubt that people normally develop a coherent sense of identity, and believe that to the extent that they do, they may experience serve emotional distress” (172). By having several masks or selves, is how we are able to adapt to changing society. With these multiple masks we are able to achieve acceptance and know who we are as individuals. Throughout life we must adopt masks when facing different circumstances; it is through these masks that we see how we change as individuals. If we spend our lives trying to stick to one mask, we can find ourselves to feel lost, depressed, or invisible. Change is good; however we must still stay true to ourselves when using masks. They are a part of us as individuals but they are not us.

Paul Laurence Dunbar is African-American poet who lived from in the late 1880s to the early 1900s. During his life, Dunbar wrote many poems, in both dialect and standard english. However, many of his poems are considered controversial now, due to negative racial stereotypes and dialect. Currently, some believe that Dunbar’s poetry perpetuates harmful stereotypes such as use of dialect; while others believe that it helps break racial stereotypes through the portrayed emotions. Dunbar’s dialect poetry is helpful for African-Americans, because it accurately depicts the experience of African Americans and humanizes them.

When given the thought, one makes the comparison that masks are used to describe our

Paul Lawrence Dunbar, born June 27th, 1872, to mother Matilda, and father Joshua Dunbar in Dayton, OH. Paul’s parents were once slaves on a plantation in Kentucky before being set free. He was very young when his parents split apart and he used that plus the stories they had told him about life on the plantation to draw

 On the way to this crescendo, Dunbar continues to add depth and breadth to the mask metaphor. “Cheeks and eyes are being hidden, and in “mouth with myriad subtleties” At this point in the poem there is little to lead the reader

In many occasions, people mask their true emotions in order to complete a goal. In “We Wear the Mask”, written by Paul Laurence Dunbar, the speaker explains the mask they must wear to “move past” the oppression the black community faces on a daily basis. In Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, written by Mark Twain, Jim, an escaped slave, began running away with Huckleberry “Huck” Finn, a young, white boy, after they ran into each other in the woods, both wanting to find freedom. Both Paul Laurence Dunbar and Mark Twain utilize the mask, or masking emotions, to show the way many people attempt to reach their goals.

In We Wear the Mask, the author’s purpose is to push the reader to feel something about the way things were in his perspective.

Dunbar opens his poem with “We wear the mask,” to draw in any type of

“This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,” this is a quote from the poem, “We Wear The Mask,” This poem explains how people hide their sorrows from the world. This is important because it shows how mask themselves. They hide behind the mask that could hurt them, which proves that it is harmful to wear a mask.

Whether we are talking about a tangible mask, or a metaphorical mask, we are constantly wearing them. It may not seem like it, but we are always have some form of a mask on us. People wear masks to hide themselves. We wear a mask when we don’t express our true selves. When we don’t act like ourselves, our mask is shielding the world of our greatness. A mask is present when we don’t express what we are really feeling. The poem “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar says, “with torn and bleeding hearts we smile.” While we may be hurting inside, we put on a masked smile to make everything seem like it is alright, to make us seem stoic. When we can’t stand something or feel the urge to yell something else, we limit our actions with a mask and stay quiet. A mask is like a restriction. It inhibits what we say, do, the way we act. We wear a mask when we feel uncomfortable or when we don’t want to be seen.