The experience of the speaker in Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” is comparable to Crooks experience in chapter 4 of John Steinbach’s Of Mice and Men. The mask being figurative refers to the emotional mask that covers and conceals one emotion which many blacks wore while being segregated because they were afraid of what would happen if they showed their true feelings. Crooks had a similar experience in chapter 4 in Steinbeck’s book in which he backed down from an argument because he was afraid of the consequences that might fall on him because he was black. One of the lines from Dunbar’s poem shows how effective one could use the mask to hide their anguish and sadness. “We wear the mask that grins and lies- It hides our cheeks and shades our eye-“, the people in this poem used this “mask” to shade their eyes and cheeks which made other people incapable of seeing their true. This method of blocking true emotions is effective because often you can see the real feelings and emotions of a person by looking into their eyes and cheeks which are supposedly “gateways” to one’s true self. By putting on an emotionless and blank persona you can show no sign of you ever being tortured by the hateful words thrown at you. Likewise Crooks also has to deal with hurtful comments such as the N word yet he abides and remains throughout the rest of the chapter with a blank emotionless tone and voice. In chapter 4 page 81, Curley’s wife threatens crooks with various crude language and threats which quickly took out all the anger he had and replaced it with the mask. “Crooks had reduced himself to nothing. There was no personality, no ego-nothing to arouse either to like or dislike. “This was not the same crooks before who a couple of lines before exploded with this” I had enough of this he said coldly. You got no rights messing around in a colored man’s room-.” This short moment of power was quickly knocked down by Curley’s
The experience of the speaker in Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” is comparable to Crooks experience in chapter 4 of John Steinbach’s Of Mice and Men. The mask being figurative refers to the emotional mask that covers and conceals one emotion which many blacks wore while being segregated because they were afraid of what would happen if they showed their true feelings. Crooks had a similar experience in chapter 4 in Steinbeck’s book in which he backed down from an argument because he was afraid of the consequences that might fall on him because he was black. One of the lines from Dunbar’s poem shows how effective one could use the mask to hide their anguish and sadness. “We wear the mask that grins and lies- It hides our cheeks and shades our eye-“, the people in this poem used this “mask” to shade their eyes and cheeks which made other people incapable of seeing their true. This method of blocking true emotions is effective because often you can see the real feelings and emotions of a person by looking into their eyes and cheeks which are supposedly “gateways” to one’s true self. By putting on an emotionless and blank persona you can show no sign of you ever being tortured by the hateful words thrown at you. Likewise Crooks also has to deal with hurtful comments such as the N word yet he abides and remains throughout the rest of the chapter with a blank emotionless tone and voice. In chapter 4 page 81, Curley’s wife threatens crooks with various crude language and threats which quickly took out all the anger he had and replaced it with the mask. “Crooks had reduced himself to nothing. There was no personality, no ego-nothing to arouse either to like or dislike. “This was not the same crooks before who a couple of lines before exploded with this” I had enough of this he said coldly. You got no rights messing around in a colored man’s room-.” This short moment of power was quickly knocked down by Curley’s