Let a Professional Writer Help You, © New York Essays 2020. The Question and Answer section for We Wear the Mask is a great Not affiliated with Harvard College. We Wear the Mask essays are academic essays for citation. How did the wearer get it and what was the original purpose? Dunbar writes, “We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries/ To thee from tortured souls arise” (10-11). Essay On We Wear The Mask 894 Words | 4 Pages. A Flair for the Dramatic/Selfish Machines by Pierce the Veil. Even after blacks received the right to vote and own land, the federal system still made it hard for blacks to make a breakthrough. Even though the mask is a grinning mask, the face under it is broken and frustrated, but the mask wearer will never show it. The paper describes Dunbar’s uses irony and the religious rhetorical to convey the disparity between the false face African-Americans were forced to wear to earn a living in white society. Throughout the poem the speaker only uses a prefix when referring to is Miss Lucy: “G’way an’ quit dat noise, Miss Lucy,’ (line 1) and “Tell you one thing now, Miss Lucy,”(line 13). In a sense, the speaker is admitting to the more powerful that all those making up the “we” wearing the mask have been pulling a great deception on them for a very long time without most of them having any level of awareness. “We Wear the Mask” describes …show more content… Through the imagery and the vernacular language the poem is written in , Dunbar implies that the speaker is a slave nanny. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of We Wear the Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar. Another word for this type of manipulation, of course, is deception, hence the term Trickster. 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. Essays for We Wear the Mask. Although the poem is more cacophonic, and harsh, rather than euphonic, and harmonious, the use of alliteration helps highlight the importance of this stanza’s sayings. Don’t worry, it shouldn’t be long. A. Which of the following best describes a central theme of the text? Hi there, would you like to get such a paper? Through the use of metaphors, Dunbar implies the feelings the blacks once had to fake in order to not get into any trouble. This verse brings about an emotional side of the speaker that we have not seen in the play, which is the essential effect of apostrophe. Even more important to this process, however, is the situation of those who do not wear the mask as “them.” Without making it explicit, the poem sets up the reader to first unconsciously acquaint themselves with the wearers of the mask and then to consciously choose sides: are they with those wearing the mask (those who are “in” on the joke) or are they a part of the “them” that only see what they are intended to see (those whom the joke is being played upon). In writing this, Dunbar makes an apostrophe to the absent Christ since Christ is not currently present in the poem. The Trickster is thus forced to rely on intelligence, wit and manipulation. Get To Know The Price of Your Custom Essay. Hi there, would you like to get such a paper? We Wear the Mask essays are academic essays for citation. Are You on a Short Deadline? Copyright © 1999 - 2020 GradeSaver LLC. How about receiving a customized one? If the mask serves to hide the true feelings of the wearer, why does the wearer choose to don it? The Trickster is an figure usually lacking in the traditional modes of power: he has little to no authority, he does not possess the strength of the typical epic hero and he likely has either no path to inherited empowerment or he faces a path obstructed by rivals endowed with more traditional heroic attributes. Dunbar also uses end rhyme in all of his ersus. resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel. However, many critics think that this poem only applies to individuals who suffered from slavery. The alliteration in this stanza is used heavily with the letter “w. Of course there is no actual mask, but the mask can be a representation of a fake personality that is happy or blissful. Fahrenheit 451 Through the Lens of "We Wear the Mask" and "Barn Burning" Double Consciousness and the Harlem Renaissance This subtle distinction raises a wealth of possibilities. Hire a Professional to Get Your 100% Plagiarism Free Paper. Let a Professional Writer Help You, © New York Essays 2020. Essentially, the person of this poem is asking why should the world get the right to know why they are truly upset, and potentially use it against them; instead, have pride, hold your head up high, and put on your “mask. Through the use of many literary devices Dunbar is able to capture the true meaning behind the mask, which is a disguise that camouflages the actual emotions of the mask wearer. (Lines 1-2) However, the next lines of the poem suggest that the nature of the mask that is worn is far more complex than a mask made of paper or plaster. One way of interpreting the symbol of the mask in terms of the person project by the poet or any creative artists attempts to reveal his true self through artistic expression. This paper examines the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar’s 1903 poem “We Wear the Mask”, which is in open defiance of the commonly accepted fallacy of his day that African-Americans were happy in the subservient roles they were forced to assume in the face of white racism. The poem strikes a contrast between African American’s exposed social faces and the bleeding hearts within their apparently smiling, happy exteriors. Through the use of apostrophe, Dunbar is able to express the emotions of the reader, which ties into why masks need to be warn. The Trickster gets what he needs through putting on his own false fronts and projecting a pretense that disguises his actual ambition. GradeSaver, 27 December 2017 Web. It could be said that the reason for this “mask” is to prevent their tormentors from starting any controversy. In a sense, the speaker is able to take the focus from masks to addressing the fact that they are being tortured; the fact that they are being tortured is exactly why they wear the masks they do, to show they are not intimidated. 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. Through “We Wear the Mask” and “Barn Burning,” this essay demonstrates the personal path of Fahrenheit 451’s main character, Guy Montag, as he evolves from being an ordinary face behind an ordinary mask to becoming a new individual with real thinking skills, who finally makes the colossal decision to abandon civilization. The poet consciously adopts a point of view that is pluralized. Everyone lies to one another, keeping a sweet simple face to hide the truth. A Flair for the Dramatic/Selfish Machines by Pierce the Veil. . In the first line he uses a metaphor to explain the “mask” that is put on to show grins. How does the poet effectively and subtly universalize his assertion in a way that forces the reader to see his point? Although each stanza has a bit of alliteration, the second stanza is the most dominant. We Wear the Mask 1260 Words | 6 Pages. Where did it come from? Dunbar was the son of freed slaves his father escaped slavery and served in the union army during the civil war. (Lines 1-2) However, the next lines of the poem suggest that the nature of the mask that is worn is far more complex than a mask made of paper or plaster. Someone from the community is currently working feverishly to complete this section of the study guide. Dunbar also uses another metaphor, “This debt we pay to human guile…” (3). Read the Study Guide for We Wear the Mask…, Fahrenheit 451 Through the Lens of "We Wear the Mask" and "Barn Burning", Double Consciousness and the Harlem Renaissance, View Wikipedia Entries for We Wear the Mask…. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of We Wear the Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar. The happy face of the mask is seen one way by “them” but hides a completely different ambition as well as different emotional state by the “we.” By donning this façade, the wearer has been able to achieve ambitions that would likely have gone unrealized without the mask. Hire a Professional to Get Your 100% Plagiarism Free Paper. Fahrenheit 451 Through the Lens of "We Wear the Mask" and "Barn Burning" Double Consciousness and the Harlem Renaissance We wear the mask that grins and lies, / It hides our checks and shades our eyes. ” In doing so, the literary term paradox comes into play. We Wear the Mask. Is the mask donned out of actual desire to hide one’s true feelings or has the mask been given to the wearer with a desire by the giver to not have to see the agony of the real face behind the mask? Retrieved October 8, 2020, from https://newyorkessays.com/essay-we-wear-the-mask/, Save Time On Research and Writing. The second stanza, especially, emphasizes the poems paradox and alliteration. (2016, Oct 12). The use of metaphor is used to describe the overwhelming struggles blacks had to go through in a white man’s world. We Wear the Mask essays are academic essays for citation. All rights reserved. These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. Apostrophe: an exclamatory passage in a speech or poem addressed to a person (typically one who is dead or absent) or thing (typically one... We Wear the Mask study guide contains a biography of Paul Laurence Dunbar, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. (2015, Apr 23). All rights reserved, Analysis of a Poem “We wear the mask”. By choosing to stick with first person plural pronouns like “we” and “our” the poem draws readers into adopting its point of view without consciously being aware. / Nay, let them only see s, while/ We wear our masks” (6-9). Using literary techniques such as: alliteration, metaphor, persona, cacophony, apostrophe and paradox, Paul Dunbar’s poem suggests blacks of his time wore masks of smiling faces to hide their true feelings. This poem can also be seen as a paradox because this so called “we” is supposed to be wearing a mask when in fact they are expressing their feelings and becoming vulnerable, aka – no more mask. The alliteration aspect of this stanza really helps reveal why the blacks continue to keep a mask up since they do not want others to know their weakness. With this one tiny distinction, the poem forces the reader to question something that is not directly addressed in the text: what is the origin of the mask? Retrieved October 13, 2020, from https://newyorkessays.com/essay-analysis-of-a-poem-we-wear-the-mask/, Save Time On Research and Writing. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of We Wear the Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar. Most people tend to prefer to be hip rather than played, just like most people would rather be part of the "we" than part of the "them.". The first and second, and also the third and fourth of each line use the long I sound for end rhyme except for the last lines of each stanza. While the opening seeks that universality of recognition with the assertion “We wear the mask” it then immediately attributes the deceptive qualities of that mask to the mask itself “that grins and lies.” This is an essential point of the poem; that it is not the wearer of the mask adopting a deceptive persona, but the mask is the agency of misrepresentation. In the first stanza, he starts off with the title of the poem stating, “we wear the mask … Author Dunbar creates a somewhat cacophonic feel to the poem to portray the hurt of these people who must wear masks. Dunbar writes, “Why should the world be over-wise,/ In counting all our tears and sighs? The title could have been “I wear the Mask” or “They Wear the Mask” or even “Those Who wear the Mask” and with just a slight reworking of language have considered essentially the same theme in essentially the same way. Are You on a Short Deadline?
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