Comparing We Wear The Mask And Ante-Bellum Sermon

William Shakespeare once proclaimed that “the past is prologue.” Are we really bound by history? Is our present a mere continuation, a monomorphic continuation if you will, of the novel that is our existence, or can it be developed in a bifurcated fashion? Paul Lawrence Dunbar, prominently noted as the "Poet Laureate of the Negro Race" (p 905) is a prime example of how the past can be depicted in a multifold manner. His two works " We Wear the Mask" and "An Ante-Bellum Sermon" illustrate the double-consciousness that Dunbar was most notorious for. It must be noted, however, that these two works, despite differing in forms of dialect, are conflations of one source, through an intrinsic connection. One will evidently see both the apparent polarity

As one maneuvers through the poem, he/she will notice a transition of thought, not necessarily of time. In other words, the time frame does not shift throughout the poem. The past is not a date or a mark on a timeline, it is the previously held belief of the speaker. What shifts is the speaker's perspective of the mask. He transitions from mourning the conditions of those wearing it(past view), to perhaps noting its benefits( present view). Written in iambic tetrameter and in the plain English verse, the writer continually bombards the reader, through continuous repetition, the idea that the Negro hid his emotions behind "The Mask." This is done to emphasize a sense of deception and belief that the average negro is a happy soul, rather than a "tortured [one]" (p 918,11) as Dunbar implies. The first stanza in itself is a lament of the "Negro's" conditions as perceived by the world. It is a representation of the past, in that the past is the speaker's past lament of the mask, not a past event in history/time. The first two lines of the poem, "We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,-" (p 918,2) are incorporated to introduce the image White Americans see when visualizing the slave. The Negro creates a "smile" despite possessing a "... torn and bleeding

The two contradicting emotions create a juxtaposition, similar to that of the former work. However, what may be less evident is that unlike in the former work, We Wear the Mask, makes reference to the past by actually shedding light on a past time period. The Biblical references ensued hope in the lives of slaves who were enslaved in the present moment. In the former, the speaker lamented the utilization of the mask by slaves and expressed optimism of the future use of the mask. This was the manner in which the past was incorporated into the poem; we did not maneuver through history but simply through thought. The present(first and second stanza) is gateway to the future, creating the duality of emotions. Conversely, within the latter poem, the speaker acknowledges the tension of the present(Pre-Antebellum) and uses the Biblical stories of a past time period to form a gateway to the future, in which "Moses"(pp 912-914) relinquishes them from the bondage of