......."We Wear the Mask" is a lyric poem about oppressed black Americans forced to hide their pain and frustration behind a façade of happiness and contentment. Dunbar published the poem in 1896 in Lyrics of Lowly Life (Dodd, Mead, and Company).
Milestone in Black American Writing
.......Dunbar was believed to be the first black American to earn national recognition for his writing. He gained attention after selling a published collection of his poems to riders on the elevator he operated in a building in Dayton, Ohio.
.......Dunbar was the son of slaves, Matilda and Joshua Dunbar. His father escaped slavery and served in the Union Army during the Civil War. The extent to which the experiences of Dunbar's parents as slaves influenced his poetry is uncertain, but it was probably considerable. One can imagine Dunbar as a child listening at the fireside to stories his parents told about their lives as slaves.
Theme: Concealed Pain and Suffering
.......To get by in America of the late 19th Century, blacks frequently concealed their pain, frustration, and anger from whites, as well as from one another. For blacks to reveal publicly their true feelings about whites' maltreatment of them would have been to risk dangerous retaliation. After all, prejudice was official policy in Dunbar's lifetime–governmentally and otherwise–and whites vastly outnumbered blacks. Sometimes, blacks even withheld their true feelings from one another, for defeat and desperation were difficult to articulate–and could impose deep anxiety upon loved ones. So it was that many blacks wore a mask that suggested happiness and contentment but concealed acute distress and pain.
Historical and Social Background
.......In
1896–the year of the poem's publication–antipathy toward blacks was widespread
in America. True, the Civil War had liberated blacks from slavery, and
federal laws had granted them the right to vote, the right to own property,
and so on. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution–approved
in the post-Civil War era–granted black Americans basic rights as citizens,
as did the Civil Rights Act of 1875. However, court and legislative decisions
later emasculated the legal protection of blacks. For example, the U.S.
Supreme Court ruled in 1896 (Plessy v. Ferguson) that it was legal to provide
"separate but equal" accommodations for passengers of Louisiana's railroads.
This ruling set a precedent that led to segregated schools, restaurants,
parks, libraries, and so on.
.......Meanwhile,
hate groups inflicted inhuman treatment on innocent blacks, including brutal
beatings. Lynchings of innocent blacks were not uncommon. Many so-called
"enlightened" or "liberal-minded" Americans looked the other way, including
law-enforcement officers, clergymen, politicians, and ordinary Americans.
Some churches even limited membership to whites. Because blacks had been
relegated to the lowest stratum of society, they had to attend poorly equipped
schools and settle for menial jobs as porters, ditch-diggers, servants,
shoeshine boys, and so on. Dunbar, a brilliant student in high school,
worked as an elevator operator before his writing earned him elevated status.
Hatred of blacks continued in the 20th Century. The Ku Klux Klan, which
disbanded in the early 1870's, reformed in 1915 and attracted more than
4 million members nationwide by the mid-1920s.
.......Prejudice
against blacks in America remains strong today in spite of major advances
in favor of blacks. Consequently, Dunbar's poem remains relevant. Schools
throughout America continue to include it in curriculums.
All the lines in the poem except Lines 9 and 15 are in iambic tetrameter. In this metric pattern, a line has four pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables, for a total eight syllables. The following presentation of Stanza 1 illustrates the pattern:
1................2.................
3...............4
It HIDES..|..our
CHEEKS..|..and
SHADES..|..our
EYES,—
1................2........
3.............4
This DEBT..|..we
PAY..|..to
HU..|..man
GUILE;
1...................2.................
3.................4
With TORN..|..and
BLEED..|..ing
HEARTS..|..we
SMILE,
1...................2...............
3.............4
And MOUTH..|..with
MYR..|..iad
SUBT..|..le
TIES.
|
|
Paradox
.......If the poem expresses Dunbar's deep feelings as an oppressed black, it also expresses a paradox. On the one hand, it hides its central issue: Not even once does it mention blacks or racial prejudice. In other words, the poem itself wears a mask. On the other hand, it openly parades Dunbar's feelings as a frustrated black across the page. In other words, it doffs all pretense and imposture. Gone is the mask. What we have, then, is a poem that conceals everything and reveals everything at one and the same time. However, if the reader views the narrator/speaker as a kind of universal voice (raceless, ageless, etc.) rather than a specific man (Dunbar), then the paradox does not obtain. In the latter case, the general language could apply to anyone of any race who hides his or her feelings to get by in the world. For additional information, see Universality, below.
Alliteration
Repetition of consonant sounds, alliteration, occurs throughout the poem. In the following lines, the alliterating consonants are highlighted:
Why
should the world be over-wise,
In counting
all our tears and sighs?
Nay,
let them only see us, while
We wear
the mask.
.......The controlling figure of speech in the poem is a metaphor, expressed in the first line, then enlarged and extended in the rest of the poem. The metaphor compares mask of Line 1 to the false emotional façades blacks use to avoid provoking their oppressors.
Apostrophe
Lines 1 and 2 of Stanza 3 present an apostrophe, a figure of speech that directly addresses an absent person or entity.
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