We Wear The Mask By Paul Laurence Dunbar Essay

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Paul Laurence Dunbar was born on June 27th, 1872 in Dayton, Ohio to former slaves Matilda and Joshua Dunbar. Throughout his life, he wrote novels, plays, and countless poems all of which were influenced by the stories his parents told him about slave life and his own experiences as a young man. He is best known for his dialect poems that spoke of the genuine truth of life as an African American during his time. Dunbar was one of the very first African American poets to be formally recognized and appreciated by the public for his supreme talent with words and the truth. He published his first book of poetry that was written in dialect in 1893 called Oak and Ivy, which quickly gained attention from other respected poets that encouraged Dunbar
Dunbar begins his first stanza by describing a mask he and others must wear that pretends he is happy and agreeable, as required for a black man in a white society. He goes on to say “this debt we pay to human guile; with torn and bleeding hearts we smile…” (lines 3-4). This line is truly significant in such that it describes how the speaker feels he is dying inside (bleeding) just from the mere weight of his skin color. This is also an important line because the narrator says he is being “torn” – as if he were a piece of paper and there are now two of him. This reiterates the fact that the people behind the mask are sad and in despair of the life they cannot have because they are black. Beginning the second stanza, Dunbar asks with sarcastic dispassion, “Why should the world be over-wise in counting all our tears and sighs?” (lines 6-7). Dunbar’s blatant strike at society is referring to the undeniable ignorance of how clearly unfair and cruel people were treated at the time and how many people still chose to ignore how wrong it was. However, Dunbar recognizes that whites will never question their ways and blacks will never take off their masks to tell them to. In despair over this realization, Dunbar accepts that since both people wearing the masks and the rest of society have to change, it will be a long time

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