The poem “ We Wear the Mask” was written by Paul Laurence Dunbar. The poem is about the substantial suffering of black people and how it is essential to mold a happy face that acts as a survival tactic. At the beginning of the poem we see that the people’s hearts are not just"torn" (4) but also "bleeding" (4) which really emphasizes the struggle behind the mask. In the median of the poem no one exhibits care for the blacks or attempts to analyze if the people are really happy, and simply disregard it. In contrast, the world’s non caring attitude is also prevalent when the speaker says “Why should the world be over-wise” (6), meaning not only is there a substantial amount of pain being felt, but the world's not even paying attention, which makes the speaker's suffering worse. Lastly, the poem transitions to the people calling “ O great Christ” (10). The people call for Christ out of hopelessness, and because they feel only he understands their pain.The end of the poem is a continuous circle of suffering because the people still continue to smile while dying on the inside. They believe that there is no good reason to show someone what is behind the mask because they will be judged or ridiculed. To them the only person that knows, and should know what is behind the mask is God, because only he truly knows and understands the struggle within black America. The negative emotions in this poem have always been a component of black America’s struggle. In "We Wear The Mask,” The writer describes how people purposely change their external appearances and how this can be both detrimental and helpful. This is seen through his expertise use of metaphors and hyperboles. The poem is also about the mask, humans wear to disguise pain, sadness, ... ... middle of paper ... ...is presented in a way that “blacks or whites can draw admonition from the subject” (1) . Another perspective from Revell is that the poem presents itself in terms of passionate personal regret. Revell believes that Dunbar felt guilty because he allowed himself to be bound to the “ plantation lifestyle” (1). The plantation life style internal anguish and agony the blacks went through as slaves. Some blacks have moved on from it, but some continue to use slavery as an excuse to not progress in life. It should be noted that Revell draws the most attention to the middle of the poem. The poem itself is masked because it never specifically says who its linked too, even though most would infer that it is linked to the black race. Revell concludes that Dunbar left aside the preconceived image of what it meant to be black in America, and spoke “only from his heart” (1) .
Paul Laurence Dunbar is one of the most influential African American poets to gain a nationwide reputation. Dunbar the son of two former slaves; was born in 1872 in Dayton, Ohio. His work is truly one of a kind, known for its rich, colorful language, encompassed by the use of dialect, a conversational tune, and a brilliant rhetorical structure. The style of Dunbar’s poetry includes two distinct voices; the standard English of the classical poet and the evocative dialect of the turn of the century black community in America. His works include a large body of dialect poems, standard English poems, essays, novels, and short stories. The hardships encountered by members of is race along with the efforts of African Americans to achieve equality in America were often the focus of his writings. http://www.dunbarsite.org/
The work, the Souls of Black Folk explains the problem of color-line in the twentieth century. Examining the time following the civil war the author, W.E.B. Dubois, explains the African American experience of living behind the “veil”. To fully explain the experience of living behind the veil, he provides the reader with situations that a black race experiences in reconstruction. This allowed the readers to metaphorically step into the veil with him. He accomplishes this with the use of “songs of sorrow” with were at the beginning of each chapter, and with the use of anecdotes.
They basically wore this mask to hide who they really was. The white society saw African American as basically an outsider and as people that were way below them. So many of these people got so a custom to society seeing them in that way that they sort of developed a “double consciousness”. What this mean is that to the world they act a certain way because it the “right” then to do, but at home or places where they can’t be judge they be who they really are. Du Bois states that we should fight back this “Double Consciousness” and just be who we were born to be. Good things come out when we act like the person that we are. We see this a lot during Celia Cruz career. Field Castro was trying to emerge her in this “double consciousness” idea but telling her who she had to be and what to say to the outside world. He wanted to control her very little step but she didn’t give in. The day that she left to Mexico and decided to never return to the island was the first day that she decided to fight back this “double consciousness” idea and just be herself. She didn’t want to do things she wasn’t comfortable, let alone be force to be someone she wasn’t. The day she sang “In Case of No Return” was the day she took of her mask and let the world see her true
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.
Stein and Pablo Picasso, her friend and contemporary, both used masking as an aesthetic means by which to alter the nature of an initial subject. Inspired by African masks, Picasso painted a mask on a portrait of Stein, while Stein rewrote her own story, first captured in Q.E.D., into the black characters of the central tale in Three Lives. In doing so, North argues, Stein both invited her white readers to live in to her characters, and allowed herself to see both race and gender as a “role,” not as a biologically predetermined attribute. At the same time, the literary and linguistic mask establishes itself as representative of freedom from European “convention” and as an example of nature and freedom, but also as a construction, a cultural convention and restriction fin and of itself. The usage of the mask, for North, represents the breaking down of the dichotomy between “impersonality and individuality, [and] conventional representation and likeness.”
In the story "Battle Royal" the narrator's grandfather tells the family to undermind the whites with "yeses" and "grins", he also instructs them to "agree'em to death and destruction". The grandfather felt that in order to keep the family safe and also hold on to the oppression that scars them everyday, they should put on a mask. This will keep the white man pleased and the blacks could keep there self respect because as soon as the opportunity for social equality comes they'll go for it. This didn't seem like a bad idea but it was hard for the narrator to comprehend.
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 Dunbar was born into a tough life from the beginning. His parents were slaves and shortly they separated after his birth but this helped Dunbar later on in his career because Dunbar would draw stories from their plantation life (Paul Poetry Foundation). He had to grow up without two parents and had to tough it out on his own. Dunbar also was financially unable to attend college and eventually moved to Chicago and befriended Frederick Douglass (Paul Poetry Foundation np). These events affected his life by not allowing Dunbar to attend college and sharpen his writing skills and Douglass helped him gain more reputation. Dunbar challenged the literary world by trying to make them read within the words and not just read the words. He fought slavery through his poetry and always referred to people as “we” and never “I”. This is important because Dunbar wanted to stand up for the whole black community and it is important he inspired so many people to read his poems. Dunbar impacted modernism by writing some o...
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 be otherwise” (13). The unreal character of the mask has played a significant role in the lives of African Americans, who pretend to put on a smile when they feel sad internally. This occasion, 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).
The 1960s was a period well remembered for all the civil rights movements that occurred during that time frame and the impact these movements had on the social and political dynamics of the United States. The three largest movements that were striving in the 1960s were the African American civil rights movement, the New Left movement and the feminist movement. These three movements were in a lot of ways influenced by each other and were very similar in terms of their goals and strategies. However, within each of these movements there were divisions in the way they tried to approach the issues they were fighting against. Looking at each of these movements individually will reveal the relationship they all share as well as the changes that were brought forth as a result of each groups actions.
The Concept of the veil has been a significant symbol of clearly differentiating from the whites, in aspects of political, economical and social prospects. Durkheim explained symbol as “something that stands for something else”(pg. 135). It is a symbol that calls up shared notions and values. In the example of the Blacks in the south, the veil symbolized an “iron curtain” separating the two races, separation and invisibility, of the black and white. The veil had previously been worn because of previous traditions demanding a clear separation of the sexes. The veil is seen as a social barrier to prevent the “others”, black African Americans, from surpassing into the clean and pure white world. Nonetheless Du bois also states, that its possible for one to, lift up the veil when one wishes, and he can also exist in a region on neither side, white nor black, which shows Du bois’ many different meaning and function with the symbol of the veil.
“We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar and “Richard Cory” by Edwin Arlington Robinson are two poems that depict how many people hide their feelings from others. The two poems are similar in theme, but are told from different points of view and differ in plot.
In Paul Dunbar’s We Wear The Mask he describes a social dissembling in the world. In this poem, we are introduced to the real mask being all of the lies and deceit. Which are racial issues? Dunbar’s use of metaphors, imagery, and rhyme gives the reader a better understanding. Also, the writer's use of figurative language brings this poem alive and offers the audience clarification.
In the poems “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar and “I Can’t Face the Music” by Billie Holiday, it is shown that the effects of going through a painful experience is unbearable. At the start of the poem “We Wear the Mask”, Dunbar speaks to the reader in a depressed tone about hiding one's pain and emotions, saying, “We wear the mask that grins and lies,/ It hides our cheeks and shades our eye (...)/ With torn and bleeding hearts we smile” (Dunbar). This quote shows the way a person ignores the way they feel as if it were the best way to overcome it. The words “lies” and “hides” reflects a dejected tone which reveals his belief in happiness in being all a lie that is hidden. The phrase “We wear the mask that grins and lies” relates to the idea that people hide their feelings rather than confronting the difficult truth and overcome it, the “mask” is symbolized as the refusion of showing one's feelings or their external image rather than their internal sentiment.
Research from the University of California San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography said that species in the ocean consume a projected 12,000 to 24,000 tons of plastic every year in the Pacific Ocean (Nall, 2014). Pollution of recyclable materials in the oceans is one of the leading causes of why some marine species are nearing extinction. Many authors of articles and books analyzing this topic tend to agree that pollution of our oceans is a problem. The future of this problem is where their ideas tend to differ. The following four literature reviews attempt to demonstrate and support my belief that pollution is getting worse in the ocean and more marine life ecosystems are being affected, but there are things that we as humans can do to change this. Imagine a world where we didn’t have to constantly worry about the vicious cycle of humans affecting animals and then animals in turn affecting us through consumption.