“We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar is a poem about hiding one’s pain and true feelings from the world. Smiling to hide deeper feelings is something all of us have done in the past and something that we will likely do in the future. It seems to be how our world works. Dunbar makes the point that this is the fault of “human guile”, which means human cleverness. It’s almost as though the human race has decided that we must be intelligent not publicly represent our sadness and anger. The only emotions that you may share with the world are meaningless surface ones. Being genuine about hard things is rare.
When you’re very young, it seems as though everyone puts on a face for you. Every adult smiles in your direction and everyone seems to be happy. It’s not until you get older and wiser that you start to understand the pain behind the smiles. You may find out about a hardship in someone’s life, but unless you’re very close to them it’s likely that they won’t tell you yourself. It can be difficult to see someone who is hiding their feelings. It is viewed as a sign of strength but it can make it much more difficult for the person because they have to spend so much energy acting like they’re fine and they may not feel comfortable opening up to anyone.
There are so many powerful lines in this poem. “With torn and bleeding hearts we smile” (Dunbar, 624) perfectly sums up the main idea. We don’t project what we actually feel whenever we are hurting. Another powerful line is, “Nay, let them only see us, while We wear the mask” (Dunbar, 624). The mask is a powerful symbol that somehow we are all immediately familiar with. Only letting people see you in one ingenuous way is how anxiety builds in people because it is stressful to be wearing a mask everyday of your life.
This poem points out certain aspects of our culture that we should strive to change. If we never stop living in a world where real emotions are weak, then we will always be unknowingly surrounded by people who need help who are afraid to express it. It takes much more strength to admit when you’re hurting than it does to put on a happy face and act like nothing is wrong. Hopefully these tides will turn and we will have a more open culture, but until then it is important to remember that you don’t know everyone’s story. Also, if you’re hurting but choosing to wear a mask, you aren’t the only one.
This is such a powerful poem about fronting. To what degree does Dunbar's identity and the historical context influence how we read the poem?
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