Richard Cory And T. R. Hummer's Poem

In Edwin Arlington Robinson's poem "Richard Cory" and T.R. Hummer's poem "Glass Ceiling," they both show how in reality people are shielding themselves from their true emotions and this can lead to very bad situations as we have seen in real-life. When hiding your true feelings or emotions, you tend to put on this fake show for yourself and everyone around you. These two poets clearly reflect on this concept and even in our daily lives there's most likely someone around you putting this "shield" up to comfort the people around them.

In "Richard Cory," Hummer tells the story from third person point of view where he is the townspeople. All the townspeople imagine Richard Cory as the richest, most handsome, and most clean favored guy in the entire town. He was almost like a celebrity, but "..he was always quietly arrayed, And he was always human when he talked." This shows just how perfect he is, or at least we think he is. The townspeople made the assumption that Richard Cory was perfect "in every grace," but never thought of asking how he was really feeling behind the shield he put up. This is almost like the story of the famous comedian Robin Williams where we thought it was all laughs and his life was perfect and one day he committed suicide when we least expected it.
In "Glass Ceiling," Hummer tells the poem in first-person, but instead he puts his shield up for someone else.
He talks about his mother but masks her as if she were really his grandmother. Mothers are thought of as being the bossy or strict type, while grandmothers are thought of as being the cool and laid back type. Hummer even says, "A quail down on the covey rise. Impossible shot you may be thinking." He implies that his grandmother did this shot when really it was his mother, once again masking her true
identity.

In both poems, there is a common conception that everything we read is true when it's not. Richard Cory is thought of as the idol of the world when he really isn't. Hummer's "grandmother" is seen as the coolest and most adventurous person in the world when really it's his mother. Masks are put up in both cases partly for themselves, but mostly to comfort the people around them. The townspeople would rather see Richard Cory as the perfect guy he is and admire him instead of worrying for his life. The reader would rather think of the cool adult in Hummer's life to be the grandmother instead of trying to picture how cool a mom could be.

Although poems are written by different authors and you think they have different meanings, they often have many similarities. Putting a mask on yourself is only hurting you on the inside because all you're doing is lying to yourself. Those lies will eventually catch up to the mind and cause you to forget who you are. Even though it's bad in some cases to do this, some cases are good when trying to comfort the one's around you.