Analyzing Paul Laurence Dunbar's They Wear The Mask

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Recommended: A critical analysis of wearing a mask

Intro: It has been said many times that "You can't judge a book by its cover" and "Don't judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes". A person may appear one way on the outside but may be feeling the total opposite on the inside. They may be masking their true emotions with a false appearance. In "We Wear the Mask" it seems that Paul Laurence Dunbar is conveying this message to his audience. Looking at the picture of the girl holding the mask, seems similar to the emotions expressed throughout the poem. Body: The poem opens with the acknowledgment that we wear these masks that hide our true feelings. It emphasizes the cruelty of the pain and suffering that the masks try to cover up, comparable to the picture. By the end it should be well understood, all of the politeness and subdued emotions are just blind of the painful truths that hide behind them. And those masks certainly are not doing anyone any favors. …show more content…

In this picture the lady is hiding because she does not want to show the pain she is feeling, so she keeps it bottled up inside. She buries her true self by “wearing” these masks and fake smiles. For example, “This debt we pay to human guile;/ With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,” translating to we put up that face to hide the pain others put us through, we try our best to smile. When you look at the poem “We Wear the Mask”, they seem similar to that of those in the picture of that girl. “We Wear the Mask- We wear the mask that grins and lies,/ It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes-,” meaning “We look as though we are something that we are not” and “We show a completely different face than what our emotions feel”. It emphasizes what the girl in the picture also portrays she’s

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