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We wear the mask by paul laurence dunbar analysis
Gedicht von Paul Laurence Dunbar we wear the mask Interpretation
Gedicht von Paul Laurence Dunbar we wear the mask Interpretation
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All people have had a time in their life where they hidden their true emotions, sometimes for their own good. It is very easy for one to lie and smile to make sure the ones around them do not know what is happening on the inside, how they truly feel on the inside. Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem, “We Wear The Mask,” is a fantastic representation of the many lives that live today, and as well in the brutal past, the past of when the African Americans were so harshly treated. It is a rondeau poem that speaks the sad and unfortunate truth of how these many people went for such a long period of time hiding their disturbed emotions in a fake world, with no help. Even though “We Wear The Mask” is a rondeau poem, it is as well introduced as a iambic tetrameter, which contains unstressed and then stressed syllable pairs, occurring four …show more content…
In the next two lines, they state: “We sing, but oh the clay is vile / Beneath our feet, and long the mile.” Dunbar speaks that the people are singing through the pain, even though they are imprisoned on this horrible earth, but will someday be free again, although that day may not come soon enough. The final two lines are very impacting. Dunbar expresses: “But let the world dream otherwise, / We wear the mask!” He says that the people of the world aren’t smart enough to realize the harshness that is happening to these African American people, mostly because they are choosing to do so. Dunbar ends his poem with the final saying of “ We wear the mask!” to express that they are strong and proud together and know that someday they will be free once more. The stating of this refrain one final time acts as a lyrical impact for the
Many writers begin writing and showing literary talent when they are young. Paul Laurence Dunbar, born and raised in Dayton, Ohio, was already editor of a newspaper and had had two of his poems published in the local newspaper before he’d graduated from high school. His classmate, Orville Wright, printed The Tattler which Dunbar edited and published for the local African American community. After graduating from high school, he was forced to get a job as an elevator operator which allowed him spare time for writing. He finally gained recognition outside of Dayton when, in 1892, he was invited to address the Western Association of Writers and met James Newton Matthews who praised his work in a letter to an Illinois newspaper. In 1892, he decided to publish his first book of poems entitled Oak and Ivy and four years later his second book of poems Majors and Minors was published. People began to see him as a symbol for his race, and he was thought of artistically as “a happy-go-lucky, singing, shuffling, banjo-picking being… in a log cabin amid fields of cotton” (Dunbar, AAW 2). Dunbar’s poems, written alternately in literary and dialect English, are about love, death, music, laughter, human frailty, and though Dunbar tried to mute themes of social protest, social commentary on racial themes is present in his poetry.
The inconsistent American view of integrity exposed in “We Wear the Mask” Paul Laurence Dunbar and “Theme for English B” Langston Hughes acknowledges the struggle between how society views African Americans and how the community views itself. Circumstances were difficult in America amongst the end of the 19th and beginning of 20th century. An immense amount of changes were happening, and numerous people had a troublesome time dealing with them. African Americans specifically got in a culture that showed up to more superior to anything it had been before and surrounded by the Civil War. The truth was, things simply weren 't so divine. African-American of this time period are prime cases
While exploring an unknown island and struggling to survive, a group of schoolboys reveal their primitive, barbarous identities in William Golding’s work, Lord of the Flies. Similarly, Paul Laurence Dunbar, an African American poet, describes the hidden nature of individuals in order to protect themselves and conceal their pain. Golding’s novel and Dunbar’s poem, “We Wear the Mask,” both express masks as means of escaping reality and a source of strength; however, the pressures of society suppress the characters in Dunbar’s poem while the boys in Lord of the Flies unleash true feelings through their innate savageness.
The poem, "We Wear the Mask”, by Paul Laurence Dunbar is about separating Blacks people from the masks they wear. When Blacks wear their masks they are not simply hiding from their oppressor they are also hiding from themselves. This type of deceit cannot be repaid with material things. This debt can only be repaid through repentance and self-realization. The second stanza of “We Wear the Mask” tells Blacks whites should not know about their troubles. It would only give them leverage over Blacks. Black peoples’ pain and insecurities ought to be kept amongst themselves. There is no need for anyone outside the black race to know what lies beneath their masks. The third stanza turns to a divine being. Blacks look to god because he made them and is the only one that can understand them. They must wear their mask proudly. The world should stay in the dark about who they are. This poem is about Blacks knowing their place and staying in it. This is the only way they could be safe.
...one existing trapped within the view of hegemonic society; angry, but powerless so long as he remains in this state. Yet Sanchez provides a succinct plan for Black Americans in their quest to ascend the Veil: to exist as both African and American while feeding white America a pacifying view of a half truth-destruction fueled by deadly ignorance. The speakers of the poems are merely victims of the same system, seeking the same freedom. While the works of these authors differ greatly, one characteristic is common in both works: The desire for power to ascend the Veil that hangs heavily upon them like a cloak that prevents their ascension. The desire to live beyond the Veil.
One pattern that is easily identified is that of religiosity. The mission of this poem was to reminds the slaves that God would free them one day, just like he did the Israelites. However, in order for a slave to believe that, he or she needed to have a belief in something greater than his or her current situation. Yet, they could not be impatient with this belief and think that it was coming soon. In “An Ante-bellum Sermon,” Dunbar tells his audience “Don’t you git to brigity;/An’ don’t you git to braggin’/Bout dese things, you wait an’ see.” If a poem was spoken like this during slavery, it would be sure to prompt the slaves not take their freedom into their own hands. Therefore, throughout the poem Dunbar is consistently reminding them that they will have to suffer first in order to one day gain their humanity and freedom. With an understanding of these Black Arts patterns, the mission of the poem is
Paul Laurence Dunbar was one of the first black poets in his time to confront the hypocrisy he saw around him. “We wear the mask” was one of his outstanding works that addressed racial injustices in American society. This poem was all about the assertion that “we wear the masks” to hide their true feeling. Yet, he goes on to emphasize that the ruthlessness of suffering and pain that these masks try to cover up because they had to keep all the pains by themselves without expressing. According to William Carroll, “The poem closes with a repetition of a sentiment stated earlier: ‘But let the world dream otherwise, / we wear the mask!’ The people show a dogged determination to keep the true nature of their sufferings to themselves and to present to others an outward show of happiness and lack of care. Surely, such insistence on deception must be motivated by powerful feelings resulting from terrifying experiences. Such were the experiences of many people enslaved in the United States before the birth of this poet” (1-2). Because of their racial appearance and experience in injustice society, they have to hide their feeling.
Stories are often left untold or forgotten. The stories that are deemed profound or are remembered are of fact or evident to the masses. The stories that make up history, such as the African Americans’ fight for equality, are made up of concrete events that were witnessed. On the contrary, stories like the narrator’s in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man are generally overlooked because they are focused on an individual’s experience. This is due to the theory that humanity is naturally self-involved, but also ashamed because the majority of our experiences consist of challenges. The narrator’s story was filled with past humiliations that were the major cornerstones to his identity. He illustrated the significance of embracing our humiliations, or
This poem is written from the perspective of an African-American from a foreign country, who has come to America for the promise of equality, only to find out that at this time equality for blacks does not exist. It is written for fellow black men, in an effort to make them understand that the American dream is not something to abandon hope in, but something to fight for. The struggle of putting up with the racist mistreatment is evident even in the first four lines:
The Souls of Black Folks by W.E.B DuBois addresses two concepts that illustrate the experience of African Americans including the concept of the Veil and the phenomenon of double-consciousness. Although the author uses these two concepts differently, their usage and meanings are related. These concepts provided a name to African American’s grievances that were felt then that could not be expressed because there were no word that could precisely describe their grievances. The implication was that the grievances experienced for being an African American could be described then, and also be described in present America. DuBois starts by describing the concept of the veil as mainly referring to three meanings. First, the veil looks at the physical differences of Blacks’ darker skin to white skin. Second, the veil looks at the inability of white people to recognize Blacks as Americans. Finally, the veil looks at Blacks’ inability to view themselves outside white American views.
Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” is a lyric poem in which the point of attraction, the mask, represents the oppression and sadness held by African Americans in the late 19th century, around the time of slavery. As the poem progresses, Dunbar reveals the façade of the mask, portrayed in the third stanza where the speaker states, “But let the dream otherwise” (13). The unreal character of the mask has played a significant role over the life of African Americans, whom pretend to put on a smile when they feel sad internally. This ocassion, according to Dunbar, is the “debt we pay to human guile," meaning that their sadness is related to them deceiving others. Unlike his other poems, with its prevalent use of black dialect, Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” acts as “an apologia (or justification) for the minstrel quality of some of his dialect poems” (Desmet, Hart and Miller 466). Through the utilization of iambic tetrameter, end rhyme, sound devices and figurative language, the speaker expresses the hidden pain and suffering African Americans possessed, as they were “tortured souls” behind their masks (10).
One of the main themes for “We Wear The Mask” is suffering. The type of suffering that Dunbar is talking about is caused when a person’s world is turned upside down, it makes you feel cold and alone. This suffering is shown in lines 6-7, “Why should the world be overwise, In counting all our tears and sighs?” The narrator feel so alone they think that sharing their feelings is not an option. In the time era Dunbar lived in it was common for his people to be treated cruelly. Knowing the historical background the reader is given more of an insight of how the narrator is feeling. In these lines the narrator tells us how important the mask are to them. The mask serve a a shield
Truly hiding the pain of how they felt. Using the word “we” is the colored people society. Not just one person like it is in society today where it’s an individual person and not just a general race. Acting up in way could cause tension to the blacks and whites. Where such as the KKK or a gang of white people harass and individual black or multiple. Using a kind of language or tone in general could easily be the reason why these problems are caused so instead of revealing their pain and agony, they wore a “mask” where they lie about how they really
In life, individuals are put through various difficult and stressful situations. To escape these situations, one might have resorted to using deceptive and deceitful behavior which ultimately led to betrayal. In the words of Paul Laurence Dunbar, author of the poem “We Wear the Mask,” “We wear the mask that grins and lies, / … This debt we pay to human guile;” (1:1-3:534). This means that one might hide their true emotions to disguise what they felt. In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator throughout the story always hid what she was truly feeling from John, her husband, and sister-in-law Jennie. Since during that time period women were being oppressed, the narrator
Most would agree that putting a smile on the face will almost allow a feeling of joy to start from within. Furthermore, what is known is that every coin has two sides and within that dark side, the smile has many different facets. The thought and discipline in civil resistance on others that look upon some as inferior is a sign of a goodly man. In “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar one facet it shows is his oppression in the world and vagueness one must reflect; through his poem, it shows the revolting world he lives in and the smile of obscurity to conceal himself from the evils in the world.