Inhumanity In Strange Fruit And We Wear The Mask By Paul Laurence Dunbar

“There is only one way in which one can endure man’s inhumanity to man and that is to try, in one’s own life, to exemplify man’s humanity to man.” by Alan Paton

Nothing can cause as much suffering and pain then man to man can. Racisms, violence, hatred, cruelty, and brutal behaviours are all traces of inhumanity. Both works of literature “Strange Fruit” by Lewis Allan and “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar portray inhumanity through the imagery of tortured souls, symbols of physical pain, and the symbolic imagery within their titles.

The barbarous images illustrated in the poems of tortured souls were so harsh to picture and not even experience in real life. In the first poem “Strange Fruit,” we get this image of discrimination

In the poem “Strange Fruit” the author uses many deadly situations to explain the severe pain these human beings were experiencing. “Here is the fruit for the crows to pluck” (Allan 9) is a symbol of even after death African-Americans were still experiencing pain. After one passes away they usually go to peace and God, but these people were left there on the trees lynched for animals like crows to eat them away because no one cared about them. Crows are a symbol of death because they eat rotten, dead, and leftover animals and flesh. Crows can also be symbolic to the Jim Crow Laws that were racial segregation laws targeting a particular race and culture of people. Another symbolic example is “Then the sudden smell of burning flesh” (Allan 8). This quote is so graphic and distasteful to hear people were on purposely being burned to death in gas chambers and in fires. This symbolizes so many different aspects like inhumanity, pain, violence, torment, and misery. Everyone has the right to live and they were killed with no real cause. Similarly, in “We Wear the Mask” the phrase “We wear the mask the grins and lies” (Dunbar 1) embodies the tragic and excruciating truth being covered up with a fake lie. In the mid 1960’s particular people were not allowed to voice or show their emotions, feelings, or ideas because they would be murdered. The mask was used to cover up the painful truth with a happy, positive

The titles of both poems have extreme symbolic imagery to grab the readers attention and get them thinking. In “Strange Fruit” the word strange is immediately associated with something that is different, weird, ugly, disgusting, unwelcoming, and bizarre. On the other hand, fruit is something sweet, delicious, and healthy. When they are united together the image that is revealed is this disgusting rotten fruit that is hanging from a tree or is fallen on ground and everyone is trying to avoid it, while at the same time make fun of it. When the title is put into context of the poem and the era it happened in it is very sad to hear how African-Americans were getting lynched on trees and everyone would look at them as this different, ugly, weird object and not humanly. Conversely, the symbol of the two words strange and fruit is very diverse and one is more positive while the other is negative, but when combined together they have a totally contrasting connotation and are presented in different ways. When one says the word strange fruit right away you assume this fruit is either spoiled, squished, or disgusting, but you never consider the positive or good side of it. Back in the nineteen hundreds there was a lot of racism between white and colour people. Sadly enough, coloured people were viewed and described as this strange fruit just because they