"We Wear the Mask" by Paul Laurence Dunbar was first published in 1896‚ a time when African-Americans‚ like Paul Laurence Dunbar‚ were treated with distain and had very few rights. The tone of the poem is a combination of anger‚ despair‚ and sadness. He skillfully uses the metaphor of wearing a mask to express the widespread oppression of African-Americans. This poem contains a lot of figurative language and other literary techniques. The poem starts with Dunbar using the word "we" to speak for
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Kyle Bigelow Dr. R. Clohessy English 202-203 July 7‚ 2013 An Unfolding of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s: We Wear the Mask The poem is concealing the pain and suffering as an ex-slave. Paul Laurence Dunbar created this masterpiece of literature around the same time former slaves were seeking civil rights and equality in America. He symbolizes the mask as a smile or grin that covered up the true emotions underlying – the unhappiness‚ disparity‚ and hopelessness. He was effective by using that symbol
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ENC 1102 October 10 2014 We Wear the Mask In Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem We Wear the Mask you quickly find out it is one big metaphor. Dunbar’s meaning behind this poem is about people covering up their feelings like someone using a mask to cover their face; as if it’s a big front to hide what is really going on. Dunbar being an African American poet in the late 19th and early 20th century was a harder time on colored people. His poems relate back to the hardships he saw and knew. The poem is
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In Paul Laurence Dunbar’s‚ “We Wear the Mask”‚ Louis Armstrong’s‚ “Black and Blue”‚ and Ralph Ellison’s‚ Invisible Man‚ all three pieces share a resemblance‚ because all the poems show people being broken or sad from the inside‚ but lying and faking a smile on the outside. In “Black or Blue”‚ Armstrong sings‚ “I’m hurt inside‚ but that don’t help my case” (Armstrong 12). Invisible‚ who is the protagonist in Invisible Man‚ doesn’t follow the “rule” until the book is nearing the end. People prefer
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keeping a sweet simple face to hide the truth. The poem‚ “We Wear the Mask” describes hardships blacks went through in America and how the blacks hide their sadness‚ grief‚ and sorrow behind a mask to survive and live from the whites. Confederate states in the south tried to keep slavery in order to keep the whites a superior and smarter race. Slaves lived a harsh life of work‚ and chores all day as somewhat expressed in “We Wear the Mask.” Many slaves believed in god or were religious in some aspect
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see what I’ve seen‚ to know it the way I’ve known it…’” (Guest). 3. What is the speaker’s tone? Which words reveal this tone? Is the poem perhaps ironic? The speaker describes the different dead-end jobs she has had in a positive way‚ happily noting‚ “all / the onion rings I could eat / cleaning houses was fine / liked the donut shop best…” (Laux‚ 4-5‚ 12‚ 29). At the end of the poem‚ the tone saddens with the description of her telemarketer job. “It wasn’t that I hated calling them… /
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Masks A mask is a covering worn on the face or something that disguises or conceals oneself. All the characters in Shakespeare’s Hamlet hide behind masks to cover up who they really are‚ which contridictes a main idea‚ expressed by the fool‚ Old Polonius‚ "To thine ownself be true" (Polonius - 1.3.84). All the characters share strengths and triumphs‚ flaws and downfalls. Instead of revealing their vulnerabilities‚ each of them wears a mask that conceals who they are and there true convictions
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Dunbar’s We Wear the Mask addresses the faults of humanity and the intersectional themes of race‚ society and class within the poem. The “mask” within this piece is symbolic of the ways in which society structures and organizes individuals to conform to societal standards. To support this theory - Dunbar uses the American Dream and slavery to remind his readers “we” wore the mask back then and “we” still wear the mask to this day. The immediate action of wearing a mask signifies suppression of
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After reading Dunbar’s poem‚ “We Wear the Mask‚” I feel the poem was meant for an educated audience since the dialect was written in Standard English. In the first line‚ “We wear the mask that grins and lies‚” the African American people are telling their side of the story through this poem. How they truly feel is contrary to their smiles‚ although‚ they suppose that things should not be any different. The author is trying to show the audience that many African-Americans are putting on a front for
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In the poem‚ “We Wear the Mask’‚ the narrator‚ Paul Lawrence Dunbar‚ expresses the pain African American experienced during the slave trade and how the slaves learned to suppress their emotions. The poem shows a contrast between African American’s social faces and their “bleeding hearts”. The tone of the poem is not a corrective tone‚ but rather an explanatory one. In considering the time period‚ it would make sense that the narrator would be careful about insulting the white community. In the
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