“We Wear the Mask:” An Exploration of 19th Century African American Emotion
During the 19th century, the United States was rife with turmoil. The Civil War had abolished slavery, and African Americans had gained the rights to vote and own property. However, the idea of slavery was still fresh in the minds of all Americans; African Americans were still treated as lower class citizens. It is from this United States that several distraught poets were born – among them, Paul Laurence Dunbar. The son of slaves, Dunbar became the first African American man to earn a living through poetry by using his poems to express the frustrations of the African American man in the 19th century. Often, his works were of one extreme or the other – his poems spoken …show more content…
Starting from the basics, Dunbar uses the structure of the poem to designate the importance of the mask. “We Wear the Mask” is a rondeau poem, with a strict rhyme scheme. The AB rhyme scheme, seen in “lies, subtleties, sighs” as well as in “guile, smile, while,” is broken only by the ninth and fifteenth lines, which are both quoted as “We wear the mask.” By drawing the attention of the reader to those lines in this way, Dunbar is pointing out the importance of the mask. He does this again in the rhythm of the poem. The meter is a very popular structure of poetry, designated by pairs of stressed and unstressed syllables called iambs. “We Wear the Mask” is written in iambic tetrameter, meaning that there are four sets of iambs that compose each line: “we WEAR the MASK that GRINS and LIES.” Again, this structure is broken only by the two lines stating “we wear the mask.” These structural idiosyncrasies point out not only the importance of the mask itself, but denote just how important it is for the reader to remember that they are just that – masks. The iambic meter is often compared to a heartbeat, making the comparison to life an obvious one. If the poem is considered the be the life of an African American, the breaking of the meter and of the rhyme scheme designates that the mask is to be held as a separate but wholly intact entity; that is to say that the mask can …show more content…
While being forced into the Jim Crow “separate but equal” state, they were still healing from the wounds of slavery, which were stitched not very long beforehand. These wounds were not mended with the concept of segregation, but were ripped open fresh. The salt in those wounds was the ability of law enforcement to simply look the other way if an African American man were to disappear or even die at the hands of a white man. Paul Laurence Dunbar understood the need to hide that wound from the world in which they lived, so as to prevent it from being poked and prodded at by the people who had oppressed them for generations. Though very different from his earlier (and much of his later) works, “We Wear the Mask” is one of the most prolific writings to come from 19th century African American culture. Indeed, these are words that still ring loudly in the ears of any race, culture, or creed, even in the modern
During the 19th century, the United States was rife with turmoil. The Civil War had abolished slavery, and African Americans had gained the rights to vote and own property. However, the idea of slavery was still fresh in the minds of all Americans; African Americans were still treated as lower class citizens. It is from this United States that several distraught poets were born – among them, Paul Laurence Dunbar. The son of slaves, Dunbar became the first African American man to earn a living through poetry by using his poems to express the frustrations of the African American man in the 19th century. Often, his works were of one extreme or the other – his poems spoken …show more content…
Starting from the basics, Dunbar uses the structure of the poem to designate the importance of the mask. “We Wear the Mask” is a rondeau poem, with a strict rhyme scheme. The AB rhyme scheme, seen in “lies, subtleties, sighs” as well as in “guile, smile, while,” is broken only by the ninth and fifteenth lines, which are both quoted as “We wear the mask.” By drawing the attention of the reader to those lines in this way, Dunbar is pointing out the importance of the mask. He does this again in the rhythm of the poem. The meter is a very popular structure of poetry, designated by pairs of stressed and unstressed syllables called iambs. “We Wear the Mask” is written in iambic tetrameter, meaning that there are four sets of iambs that compose each line: “we WEAR the MASK that GRINS and LIES.” Again, this structure is broken only by the two lines stating “we wear the mask.” These structural idiosyncrasies point out not only the importance of the mask itself, but denote just how important it is for the reader to remember that they are just that – masks. The iambic meter is often compared to a heartbeat, making the comparison to life an obvious one. If the poem is considered the be the life of an African American, the breaking of the meter and of the rhyme scheme designates that the mask is to be held as a separate but wholly intact entity; that is to say that the mask can …show more content…
While being forced into the Jim Crow “separate but equal” state, they were still healing from the wounds of slavery, which were stitched not very long beforehand. These wounds were not mended with the concept of segregation, but were ripped open fresh. The salt in those wounds was the ability of law enforcement to simply look the other way if an African American man were to disappear or even die at the hands of a white man. Paul Laurence Dunbar understood the need to hide that wound from the world in which they lived, so as to prevent it from being poked and prodded at by the people who had oppressed them for generations. Though very different from his earlier (and much of his later) works, “We Wear the Mask” is one of the most prolific writings to come from 19th century African American culture. Indeed, these are words that still ring loudly in the ears of any race, culture, or creed, even in the modern