“We Wear the Mask” is one of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s most influential works. Appearing in 1895 in his second poetry volume Majors and Minors, the poem reflects an unspecified collective, a “we” hiding behind a “mask,” which is used throughout the poem as an extended metaphor for survival tactics against oppression. “We Wear the Mask” stands as a poem about racism and oppression and the marginalized.

Dunbar’s voice as a major American writer is varied and expansive. While he may be uniquely known for his writings in the African American dialect of the time, this poem underscores his wide literary range through use of linguistic and literary devices, poetic knowledge, and clever activism, traits that appear throughout his work. Despite Paul Laurence Dunbar’s young death, he managed to become one of the first African American writers to garner international success.

Poet Biography

Born in Dayton, Ohio, on June 27, 1872, Paul Laurence Dunbar is credited with being one of the first internationally recognized African American poets. He was also a novelist, essayist, and a short story writer. His parents were former slaves before the American Civil War, and his writing often reflects his experiences being Black in a racist society. Despite those challenges, as the only Black student in his class, Dunbar excelled in his studies, serving as president of his high school’s literary society. He also maintained relationships easily, keeping a longstanding friendship with Orville Write. He began publishing poetry by age 16, and after garnering attention from leading figures in the publishing world, his career began to take flight.

Dunbar’s ability to reach a wide audience through his work in both standard English and dialectic verse made him increasingly popular among a predominantly white audience. His poetry and fiction continued to explore the racism and suffering African Americans endured in a pre- and post-Civil War America (Folks From Dixie). He eventually took on the role of clerkship at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and married Alice Ruth Moore, a fellow writer. His health soon began to deteriorate, but he continued to write and push boundaries in his work. Dunbar would continue to expand his writing credits, with short stories in “The Strength of Gideon” (1900), novels like The Sport of the Gods (1902), and poetry collections like “Lyrics of the Hearthside” (1903), among others.

Dunbar kept publishing up until 1905, despite his severely declining health. He relied on alcohol to suppress his discomfort, and he eventually succumbed to his illness on February 9, 1906, at the young age of 33.

Since Paul Laurence Dunbar’s early death, his work has been debated by scholars amid a ride of ever-changing social temperaments. Today his work is again regarded for not only being the first major African American writer in American Literature, but for writing that, still to this day, provides a voice for the marginalized and oppressed.

Poem Text

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!

Dunbar, Paul Laurence. "We Wear the Mask." 1895. Poetry Foundation.

Summary

In Stanza 1, “We Wear the Mask” opens with a collective “we” hiding behind a mask “that grins and lies” (Line 1-2). This mask, the prevailing extended metaphor in the poem, is described as a debt to such social deceit, “human guile” (Line 3). Unspecified, this collective “we” must manage a smile behind “torn and bleeding hearts” (Line 4) and manage their “mouth” behind “myriad subtleties” (Line 5). In other words, they must self-edit to maintain the illusion of happiness.

The second stanza questions what would be the value of revealing what is behind the mask, “all our tears and sighs” (Line 6-7), to a world capable of such disregard: Are they worthy of seeing the truth, and would it even matter? The speakers assemble once again in defiance: “Nay, let them only see us, while / We wear the mask” (Lines 8-9). This is all the world gets to see.

As much as the speakers appear to smile on the surface, beneath the mask, in Stanza 3, they cry out “O great Christ” (Line 10) from their “tortured souls” (Line 11). “We sing,” they affirm, walking this unfinished and muddy path, “vile” and repulsive, “long the mile” (Lines 12-13). The poem ends in resilient defiance, to “let the world dream otherwise” (Line 14) and let it remain in its self-made ignorance, while “we” survive behind the mask (Line 15).