Paul Laurence Dunbar
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes-
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
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.
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To the from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile,
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
My Understanding:
This poem talks a lot about a mask.
A mask is something to cover up what is true; a fake replica/imitation made to replace the truth.
The speaker in the poem keeps mentioning 'we', this indicates that he is talking for a group of people.
The phrase 'mask that grins and lies', gives us a decietful feeling in the poem.
Shades our eyes = eyes in a person is what reflects who they are. Sad people have sad eyes, happy people have bright eyes and so on. To 'shade our eyes' is to hide oneself, who they really are. (It could also mean to shade our shame)
dept we pay to human guile = (guile-> cunning deception to attain a goal) human guile is like human nature, our nature to be sinful. A dept we pay is blaming our wrongdoings on our nature.
Torn & bleeding hearts we smile = another indication of deceitfulness
myriad subtleties = a great number of delicate meanings, in other words, they talk with a sweet tongue.
.
world be over-wise, counting tears and sighs = The speaker is saying that the world doesn't remember all our faults.
.
O great Christ= Christ is either God or the speaker. Only God/the speaker knows of what is going on inside of them: thoughts, troubles, torment.
to thee from tortured souls arise = this sounds as if the 'Christ' is a place of comfort and also a place of total truth.
clay is vile beneath our feet = the ground the speaker stands on is not stable. He/she doens't feel safe. Clay can suck you in slowly. The speaker sounds suspicious and nervous of everything, even of the 'vile' ground he/she stands on.
let the world dream otherwise = Despite the truth that the speaker has on a mask that covers his real self, the world believes in the mask that they see. But what they believe is made of false reality.
we wear the mask! = The exclamation point gives us a feeling of victory or self-satisfaction. The speaker, despite that he/she is bleeding inside, is rather happy that he/she has the mask in posession.
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The author seems to be talking about the corruption of human nature. People, either because of past wounds or other reasons, tend to hide their true selves. They use sweet words to get what they want and only try to portray their optimistic sides. The world becomes a place where they have to watch their backs. Because they know that they are not the only ones who have a mask. The world, in a way, knows this; but there is always talk of utopias, or a perfect government. Although the hiding of the pain and sins is hard, the author shows us with the last line that we cannot survive without a 'mask' to cover ourselves us, thus leading to the conclusion that humans are deceitful by nature.
3 comments:
AN AFTERTHOUGHT: This poem seems to be dealing with temptations as much as it is dealing with human nature.
Come to think of it, temptations come in the form of harmless things. It convinces us with a sweat voice and hides from us its face. The world won't 'count all our tears and sighs', the world won't necessarily bother with the stories of the people who have fallen into temptation's net. The confidence to catch people in the figure 'temptation' comes from 'We wear the mask!'
I think you did a lot of work on this poem. I also think that this poem mostly talks about the temptation among the people.
"We wear the mask"
Wow, you must like this poem a lot...
I agree with your ideas on the corruption of human nature. I also think this poem tells us about how we conceal our inner feelings of pain and suffering while wearing a fake smile. For some reason, this poem seems to remind me of the slaves in pre-Civil War United States and how they had to conceal their pains and sufferings in order not to provoke their owners. I won't go on with this though...maybe finding the background of the poet might help..
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