An Analysis Of Paul Laurence Dunbar's They Wear The Mask

In his iambic rhythm tetrameter “We Wear the Mask,” Paul Laurence Dunbar conveys the idea, that people hide their most inner feelings through his sad and deceitful tone with the imagery of a mask. The title “We Wear the Mask” is repeated two times in a row at the very beginning of the poem to indicate that the narrator’s view is more than just wearing a mask. This is stated to express a greater importance but it is not yet known as to why people are covering up their faces and if they are choosing to do so. The starting word of the poem is “we” to grasp the reader as if the narrator already knows at one point or another they have worn a disguise as well. “We wear the mask that grins and lies,” (1) hides the true nature of a person under an …show more content…
The debt is that people are being deceitful to their peers. What can “Human guile” suggest? Perhaps that people go through their daily days concealing who they truly are and being someone they are not with cunning intelligence. The truth behind the masks shows pain and misery that each person persistently hides from the world. The words figuratively used “With torn bleeding hearts we smile” (4) really magnifies the underlying struggle that people live everyday filled with anguish. People are being pulled into different directions either to show their true face or a face of lies. Adding to the layer of the mask “smile” makes it extremely harder for someone to show their real colors. That line is quite contradicting in that it begins with someone being “torn” on the inside and ends with “smile” on the outside to dupe the world. Here it is seen again, the couplet rhyme with “guile” and …show more content…
When everyone can pretend to be anyone but themselves, why would they ever choose to break away from their disguise that would cast their truth. The narrator then asks the question of “In counting tears and sighs?” (7) but is he asking for a literal answer or rhetorically? No one could possibly count all the tears they have shed through their lifetime. These two lines rhyme “wise” and “sighs” with the first two in the first stanza “lies” and “eyes” that shows the narrator is staying with his rhyme scheme. The third line shows more than meets the eye “Nay, let them only see us, while,” (8) to let everyone disregard and abandon the truth because it’s easier that way to accept the lies shielded by the mask. The title of the poem is repeated in the last line of the second stanza to remind the reader that the reason why people hide their true self's is that they do not have to confront their fears. Repeated again, the word “smile” in “We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries” (10) to reiterate that the truth continues to be hidden behind the bogus facial expression and that people proceed to cover up the underlying