Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem, “We Wear The Mask” cleverly talks of the black condition in a language so universal that it could apply to any race of people that tries to hide their emotions from the world in order to survive.
Dunbar argues for the reality of the black man’s plight in America, the black man's struggle for equality in the world, and the struggle for peace within. These are circumstances of the poet’s life that influenced his writing of the poem.
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Paul Laurence Dunbar’s was born in Dayton, Ohio in 1872, to parents who were former slaves. His parents divorced when he was four years old. Dunbar developed a strong bond with his mother. She told him stories of her slavery days, which helped influence his writings of poetry and short stories (Dunbar 602).
“Dunbar was the only African-American in his class at Dayton Central High, and while he often had difficulty finding employment because of his race, he rose to great heights in school (Dunbar , U. of Dayton). Dunbar began writing in high school, becoming class president and poet. He supported himself by writing as an elevator operator. Dunbar died at the age of 33 from tuberculosis. He had “written 12 books of poetry, as well as a play, five novels, and four books of short stories (Dunbar, U. of Dayton). He had also been published in many magazines and journals. After his death, his Dayton house became a landmark open to the public, and he had a high school named after him” (quote)
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Dunbar’s argument for the reality of the black man’s ...
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...a, his struggles for equality, and for peace within. Dunbar’s is advocating courage in the face of racial domination and discrimination. He is trying to get across to the reader, the mask isn't real, and the world is only seeing us in disguise.
Works Cited
“An Analysis of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s We Wear the Mask.” 123HelpMe.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Dec. 2009. .
Dunbar, Paul Laurence. Biography. Call & Response. The Riverside Anthology of the African American Literary Tradition. Reading.
- - -. “Biography: The Life of Laurence Dunbar.” The Paul Laurence Dunbar Website. Public Relations Office of U. of Dayton, 3 Feb. 2003. Web. 4 Dec. 2009. .
Johnson, Melody C. “Critical Appreciation of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask”.” Bookstove. N.p., 5 Nov. 2009. Web. 4 Dec. 2009. .
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.
The inconsistent American view of integrity exposed in “We Wear the Mask” Paul Laurence Dunbar and “Theme for English B” Langston Hughes acknowledges the struggle between how society views African Americans and how the community views itself. Circumstances were difficult in America amongst the end of the 19th and beginning of 20th century. An immense amount of changes were happening, and numerous people had a troublesome time dealing with them. African Americans specifically got in a culture that showed up to more superior to anything it had been before and surrounded by the Civil War. The truth was, things simply weren 't so divine. African-American of this time period are prime cases
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...
The poem, "We Wear the Mask”, by Paul Laurence Dunbar is about separating Blacks people from the masks they wear. When Blacks wear their masks they are not simply hiding from their oppressor they are also hiding from themselves. This type of deceit cannot be repaid with material things. This debt can only be repaid through repentance and self-realization. The second stanza of “We Wear the Mask” tells Blacks whites should not know about their troubles. It would only give them leverage over Blacks. Black peoples’ pain and insecurities ought to be kept amongst themselves. There is no need for anyone outside the black race to know what lies beneath their masks. The third stanza turns to a divine being. Blacks look to god because he made them and is the only one that can understand them. They must wear their mask proudly. The world should stay in the dark about who they are. This poem is about Blacks knowing their place and staying in it. This is the only way they could be safe.
Dunbar, Paul Laurence. “We Wear the Mask.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Nina Baym. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2007. Print
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/
In the time of the Great Depression, many people were in moments of suffering and hardships. However, African American were facing moments of prejudice and segregation, that was sonly based on the color of their skin. In the novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper lee and the poem “We wear the mask” by Paul Lawrence Dumber, gave incite to those moments and how African Americans changed themselves to fit in to the white people society.
In the opening paragraph of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, the protagonist introduces readers to what he means when he refers to himself as invisible: the protagonist is seen only for the color of his skin, and thus, grouped into an African-American general populace. In grouping the protagonist, whites not only refuse to see him but also forbid him from possessing an individual identity. Using Ellison’s prologue to Invisible Man, Louis Armstrong’s “Black and Blue” (referenced in the prologue), and additional intertextual allusions, this essay argues that jazz music enables Ellison’s protagonist to separate himself from the African-American general populace and retain his individuality; jazz music shows him that he already accepts his invisibility, and that he listens differently to the lyrics than others. The wider implication being made is that, by listening to jazz music, an invisible man is compelled to act. He learns to take advantage of his invisibility so as to undermine the culture that oppresses him and be seen.
upon the natural ability of the race in song and is acknowledged to be Dunbar's
In the 1950s, Ralph Ellison published Invisible Man which focused on the racial invisibility of people of color. The chapter, “Battle Royal,” reflects a pre-Civil Rights Era where blacks and whites were considered “separate, but equal.” Ellison describes a life where blacks were separate, but not truly equal because they still lived a life where they had to be careful and live consciously around whites or face harassment or even death. In Ellison’s story, an unnamed narrator receives a letter awarding him a scholarship. The narrator is asked to deliver a speech and at the event, he discovers that he will need to participate in a “battle royal.” In Ellison’s narrative, the event of the required “battle royal” symbolically illustrates how the
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
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 otherwise” (13). The unreal character of the mask has played a significant role over the life of African Americans, whom pretend to put on a smile when they feel sad internally. This ocassion, 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). Through the utilization of iambic tetrameter, end rhyme, sound devices and figurative language, the speaker expresses the hidden pain and suffering African Americans possessed, as they were “tortured souls” behind their masks (10).
"African American History 2014 - Carter G. Woodson "African American History Month 2014 – Carter G. Woodson. N.p, n.d Web. 09 Mar. 2014.
In the inspiring poem- I, too, sing America- Langston Hughes, states real life situations of the constant battle of racism in the world. A servant to the white family, waiting on their every move, making sure they are taken care of before himself. This poem can have a wide range of racial statements or actions, the black male does not seem to have fear, through his courageous actions, putting the consequences he may face aside to prove a point. A small act of bravery through this world wide sickness some people have, can make an enormous impact of many lives, regardless of race.
"Battle Royal", an excerpt from Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, is far more than a commentary on the racial issues faced in society at that time. It is an example of African-American literature that addresses not only the social impacts of racism, but the psychological components as well. The narrator (IM) is thrust from living according to the perceptions of who he believes himself to be to trying to survive in a realm where he isn't supposed to exist, much less thrive. The invisibility of a mass of people in a society fed the derivation of IM's accepted, willed, blindness. The reader must determine the source of what makes IM invisible. Is part of IM's invisibility due to his self-image or surrender to the dominant voice in the United States? The answer lies in whether or not the blindness and the invisibility were voluntary or compulsory.