Subjects:
true identity of their feelings. The 1896 poem "We Wear the Mask",
Paul Laurence Dunbar illustrates this theory. People wear mask for
many different reasons but mostly to hide their true self from society.
The message portrayed by Dunbar is that it is one's self right to wear a
The first couplet clearly states how strongly Dunbar feels about
the mask that we wear. According to him the mask allows us to
"grin[s] and lie[s]" while on the inside we are hiding how we truly feel.
By hiding our cheeks and shading our eyes we jade reality. In the
following line Dunbar explains one of the ways we use our mask is to
be "guile". Guile means that we are deceitful to others in our daily
quest. The fourth line of the stanza explains that we may hurt deeply
on the inside but because we are wearing our mask we still smile. So
no matter how bad we do hurt, out of habit we feel obligated to put
on a mask for everyone else. Dunbar ends the stanza by implying th
. . .
his personal life he may have had something to hide from the world. Perhaps we are not harming a soul by the mask we
wear. At the same time he seems to be
saying that we should wear our mask everyday and take it off for no
one. The third and fourth line of
the final stanza Dunbar says "We sing, but oh the clay is vile beneath
our feet. Dunbar believes that we should not have to let the world know
"all our tears and sighs". It is not always healthy to hide
ones true self and feelings, especially if they are painful. We are the clay and you[God] are the potter; we are the
work of your hands". I also feel
that if you continually ware you mask you will soon lose touch of who
you really are. I think that he alludes to Isaiah 64:8 in which it
states " . No one can ever be sure of the message that Dunbar is
trying to relay to us.
This poem goes deeper than just the words on the page. at
not only do we lie with our smiles but our mouth lies through the smile
with "myriad and subtle" words.
Essay's Topics
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