We Wear the Mask - Jenna Pelosi

Paul Laurence Dunbar
We Wear the Mask

Just by reading the title to this poem, the reader can see the emphasis on the speakers’ usage of persona. This poem shows a realistic view of society today. Many interactions today are fake and false when looked at the true emotion and meaning the person is hiding behind. “We wear the mask that grims and lies, it hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,” (Dunbar, pg 465). That sentence shows pure persona. The speaker’s use of lyric life, to me, here is brilliant. When he sates, “and shades our eyes”, that really hit home with me. Most people, including myself, say that they are able to tell a lot from a person by their eyes. Often times you can tell if someone is lying, or being fake in their mannerisms toward you. Another way the speaker shows persona is in the sentence, “With torn and bleeding hearts we smile” When we feel heartache, or heartbreak the last facial expression we reveal is a smile; therefore it is a “masked” emotional state. Right now in my life, I am struggling with a couple personal inflictions, and I find myself trying to find my relationship with God to help me through this, and when the speaker states, “ We smile, but O great Christ, our cries to thee from tortured souls arise”, I was able to find myself. (Dunbar, pg. 465). When I read that part I heard myself reading it, except I sounded like this, “I smile, but O God, I cry to you from tortured inside”