Analysis of "We Wear the Mask" by Paul Laurence Dunbar

?We Wear the affect? by Paul Laurence Dunbar was first promulgated in 1896, a time when African-Americans, like Paul Laurence Dunbar, had rattling little rights. This poe learn deals directly with the racism that African-Americans faced. The views of the whole American-American connection be expressed because of Dunbar?s use of the word ?we?. This poesy contains a lot of figurative language and other literary techniques.

The poem starts with Dunbar speaking for the entire black community. He expresses his choler of having to hide his emotions. When they are creation lynched and discriminated against, they are forced to force back it and mask their true emotions with a smile. In the third stanza, Dunbar tells of how they try visiting to Christ for help. The rest of the world, however, ignored their cries and were non sensitive of the black community?s struggle for equal rights. The bear line of the poem shows Dunbar realization that their efforts are not working, and they pull up stakes continue to subscribe to to ?wear the mask?.

The tone of the poem is a combination of anger, despair, and sadness. Dunbar expresses his anger of having to hide his emotions.

With torn and bleed hearts we smile,And mouth with myriad subtleties.(lines 3-4)The fourth line explains that African-Americans were not allowed to verbalize their ideas. The last stanza expresses the idea of sadness and despair. They try to cry out to Christ for help, but they continue to be discriminated against and have to ?wear the mask.??We Wear the Mask? has a very evoke rhyme pattern: AABBA AABC AABBAC. The poem is broken up into ternion stanzas. They are all different lengths with the first stanza having five lines, the back up having four lines, and the last stanza having six lines. The last lines in the endorse and third stanza are both ?We wear the mask?. I thought it was important to notice the fact that those cardinal lines are indented.They are also different in the fact that they are the only lines to contain only four syllables.



With the exception of those two lines and line 5, the rest of the poem is written in iambic tetrameter.

thither are a few exaples of literary tools being utilize in this poem. There is an example of assonance in the third stanza.

Beneath our feet, and long the mile;But let the world dream otherwise,(lines 13-14)In those two lines, the long ?e? endure is used in the words ?beneath?, ?feet?, and ?dream?. There is also alliteration in the last stanza.

But let the world dream otherwise,We wear the mask.(lines 14-15)The ?w? sound is used in the beginning of a word three times in those two lines.

Repition is used in ?We Wear the Mask?. The line ?We wear the mask? is used once in every stanza and is the title of the poem. I think this helps to emphasize the horrors that African-Americans had to go through in the past.

If you want to get a honest essay, order it on our website: Ordercustompaper.com



If you want to get a full essay, wisit our page: write my paper