The poem We Wear the Mask, written by Paul Laurence Dunbar, contains three stanzas. The first one consists of five lines, the second one contains four, and the third one is six. The second and the third stanzas have the same ending line since both of them end with the phrase “We wear the mask” (Dunbar, 1895). The poem is rhythmical, and the only lines that do not contribute to its general rhyme and rhythm are the ending lines of the second and third stanzas.
The central image the poem is built across is a mask that almost everyone member of society wears in order to hide their emotions, thoughts, and true self. The poem was written and published during a hard period in American history since the readers saw it at the end of the 19th century after the Civil War. Though it is not explicitly shown in the poem itself, its message refers to the black people in the US and their life after the Civil War. In that case, the image of the mask is used to show that previously enslaved people were forced to hide their sufferings and pains. At the same time, since the poem does not explicitly mention race, its content may be interpreted in different ways depending on the way of thinking and the worldview of the person who reads it.
It is also worth mentioning that from the very beginning, the author presumes that all people in the world wear this metaphoric mask that helps them hide their true selves. He begins the poem with the pronoun “we,” which not only presumes that the whole of humankind wears masks but also makes the readers include themselves in the group of people who wear masks(Dunbar, 1895). In the first stanza, Dunbar calls masks a product of “human guile” that helps people smile even “with torn and bleeding hearts” (Dunbar, 1895). These lines mean it is almost impossible to live without hiding emotions and pains since not all situations enable people to show their real moral state.
The second stanza begins with the rhetorical questions the author asks to understand why the world often conceals important problems. This stanza refers not only to the personal issues every human has but to the problems that affect the whole world. The first two lines that contain the rhetorical question make the reader reflect on why it takes the world so long to see and acknowledge already existing problems. It may happen because people often think that a particular problem does not exist because they do not face it.
The third stanza, which is the longest one in the poem and consists of six lines, strengthens the tension of the previous two. The author here demonstrates the sufferings of those who wear masks. Here the readers encounter the antithesis since the author opposes singing to the “vile” clay that spreads beneath people’s feet and “long the mile” (Dunbar, 1895). The penultimate line of the poem shows that the world does not see or does not want to see this clay which represents the image of the problems and sufferings the majority of people experience.
To conclude, the poem We Wear the Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar, published in 1895 after the Civil War in the United States, reveals the fact that almost everyone in the world wears a mask to conceal their sufferings, pain, or emotions. The metaphoric mask also symbolizes that problems important to humankind are often hidden from ordinary people who do not see them or do not want to think about them. Written at the end of the 19th century, the poem remains topical in the modern world. Nowadays, people wear these masks to either hide their true selves from others or hide from the problems that exist in the world.
Reference
Dunbar, P. L. (1895). We wear the mask. Poetry Foundation.