Every minute of every day people wear a mask. A mask to hide the
             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 that
             not only do we lie with our smiles but our mouth lies through the smile
             The next stanza illustrates the fact that Dunbar believes we
             have every right to wear our mask. At the same time he seems to be
             saying that we should wear our mask everyday and take it off for no
             one. Dunbar believes that we should not have to let the world know
             "all our tears and sighs". Why should the world be "over-wise" to our
             true feelings. Perhaps we are not harming a soul by the mask we
             wear. Dunbar states "Nay let them only see us, while/ We wear the
             mask" to prove this point. I believe he might feel this way because in
             his personal life he may have had something to hide from the world.
             Authors seem to draw their works from true experience.
             In the final stanza Dunbars says that the ultimate
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