An Analysis of Paul Laurence Dunbars We Wear the Mask :: We Wear the Mask Essays

An Analysis of Paul Laurence Dunbars We Wear the MaskIt has been state many time that You sewert judge a book by its get across and Dont judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes? A person may appear one route on the outside but may be feeling the come in opposite on the inside. He may be masking his adjust emotions with a false appearance. In We Wear the Mask it seems that Paul Laurence Dunbar is impartation this message to his audience.The African-American slaves of the early United States are prime examples of how emotions can be repressed. This group of people was treated with such disrespect and degradation that it is understand fitting why they would mask their true thoughts and their emotions. To make their daily lives easier, they round and acted the ways that their white owners dictated. Their lives had, to a point, been taken away from them. But, there were well-nigh things that could never be taken away from them their inner strength and their spiritua lity. No matter how a slave was treated, how hard he had to work, or how sm wholly he had, hedid have total control of his own thoughts and beliefs. Those things could never be taken from him.This poem cries out with the hurt that African-Americans, throughout history, suffered with. To be able to endure this daily persecution, these people had to draw on their inner strength. When Dunbar wrote,With lacerate and bleeding paddy wagon we grin, it is obvious of the agony felt and of how a smile is sometimes worn in order to camouflage ones true emotions.A deep, religious faith was a saving grace to these people as a whole. Ones spirituality can carry them through even the close dreadful situations. This idea is evident when Dunbar penned the lines, we smile,but, O great Christ, our cries To thee from tortured souls arise. When in all else had failed, slaves could pray and feel that God had heard them. At last, their cries would be heard, their prayers answered, andtheir hearts re lieved.We all have hide our emotions at one time or another. We put on false faces and pretend for many different reasons. We all lie, in one form or another, be it a turgid lie or a little white one. Whether it be to pull through our self or the feelings of another we should all remember the Golden predominate Do unto others as you would have them do unto you (Luke 631).