Analysis of We Wear the Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar

We Wear the Mask 

By 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.

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.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries

To thee 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!

This poem is by the black poet Paul Laurence Dunbar who lived from 1876 to 1906.  His parents were slaves and he became internationally famous for his poetry which was often written in black dialect.  

He begins with the idea of wearing a mask.  The first line begins with alliteration in we wears, and goes on to say that the mask they wear are grins and lies.   The we isn't given but it can assumed to be black folk of the time given the context of the writer and the times.  The next line says it hides their cheeks and shades their eyes.  Here there's a deliberate invocation of a hidden persona behind a mask.  The poem goes on to say that the mask is worn with guile, and it's to guile that it's owed.   But behind the mask their hearts are bleeding, but their still smiling.  Somehow this mask is the face itself which they hide behind as they smile.   The fifth line is alliterative with mouth and myriad, and the conveyance of the mask is understood not just to be in facial expressions and gestures, but also in the myriad of subtleties the people behind the mask voice. 

The next stanza asks the question of why should the world be overly concerned about the tears and sighs of those wearing the mask.  It's a question given without an answer.  It could be resentment from those wearing the mask at the rest of the world seeing them in sorrow.  It could be the need to hide the pain of holding a lesser status before well-meaning but ignorant observers.  It could be both and more.  But the poet goes on to say that their observers should only see them while they wear the mask.

The next line reinforces the Christian piety of the narrative by pleading to  Christ about the truth of their disposition.   Saying outright that their pleas arise from tortured souls.   The narrative continues on to say that they keep the mask up while singing, but that the ground beneath their feet is odious and that their lives are dreary with the allusion of walking miles.   Still the narrative reiterates the idea that the mask is worn, despite all the hardship, and that the world sees those who wear the mask other than as they are. 

The last line of the last stanza follows the last line of the second stanza in the chorus of We wear the mask!