...When Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote the poem in 1893, I cannot say he had my situation in mind but rather the life and struggles of an African American man in the 19th century. Dunbar was born in Ohio in the summer of 1872 to two former slaves from the state of Kentucky. His mother, Matilda had been emancipated by President Lincoln some years before and moved herself and family to Ohio. Paul’s father, Joshua, escaped from enslavement sometime before the civil war ended and moved northern to join the north in battle. Matilda and Joshua married in the winter of 1871 just in time to build a home for their growing family. The marriage was short lived when after Joshua left it was up to Matilda to care for Paul and his younger sister. When Paul was...
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...In the poem, "Sympathy" by Paul Laurence Dunbar and the poem "Caged Bird" by Maya Angelou the theme is freedom. The authors writings are similar but not quite the same. These two poems are similar and different in many ways because they share the same theme but the authors convey differently. "Caged Bird" and "Sympathy are very similar poems. In both poems the man character are birds. "I know why the caged bird sings." (Dunbar 21) " The caged bird sings"( Angelou 15) Both birds are being tantalized by where the poems are taking place, and are pouring their feelings about freedom into songs. Also, the theme in both poems is freedom. "... he would be free" (Dunbar 17) "sings of freedom"(Angelou 21) In both poems the main theme is freedom and the cage is a symbol of an internal or external conflict. The two poems may be similar but Dunbar conveys being caged and wanting freedom in his own way. In Dunbar's poem the bird is beating its wings and is physically hurting itself. " When his wings is bruised and his bosom is sore/ When he beats his bars"(Dunbar 12-13) The bird is really trying to get out of its confinement and is willing to hurt itself to achieve it. In "Sympathy" the bird isn't singing with joy. "Not a carol of joy or glee/ But a plea, the upward to heaven he flings."(Dunbar 18-20) The...
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...“Sympathy” by Paul Laurence Dunbar is poetry in relation to feeling trapped in your emotions an choices. Dunbar used the caged bird to create a correlation between his parents life in slavery and what he learned from them regarding his parents life. The use of singing within the poem is a way to represent feelings of sadness, pain, aching, and anger. This poem can be relevant today because of people feeling trapped in their choices and their circumstances. The singing correlates with today's way of life by showing what the author is telling us what is hidden but we pretend it is okay. “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou adds to “Sympathy” by explaining both sides of the whites and blacks. When she uses the words caged bird, she...
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...We Wear The Mask “We Wear The Mask”, by Paul Dunbar is a poem that was written in 1896, that depicts how African-Americans must disguise their true emotions by smiling, laughing, and going along like their not being discriminated against. During slavery, African-Americans were treated with such humiliation and disrespect, that they had to cover their real emotions just to make their daily lives easier. Also they had to keep quite while being discriminated against, or they would have to face the consequences of being lynched, tortured, or imprisoned. In this close reading, I will elaborate what message Paul Dunbar is trying to convey to the audience, and how “ Wearing the Mask”, can even be applied today. Paul Laurence Dunbar was the first African-American to gain national recognition as a poet. He was born in 1872 in Dayton, Ohio, where he was the son of former slaves. Although Dunbar only lived to be thirty-three years old he was well known for writing short stories, novels, librettos, plays, songs, and poetry. In the article titled , “ Black Naturalism, White Determination Paul Laurence Dunbar’s Naturalist Strategies, it explains, how Dunbar had to create literary strategies that were capable of critiquing the problems African-Americans had to face, but at the same time he would not explicitly confront white readers beliefs regarding blacks. I believe the perfect example of this is “ We Wear the Mask”, because Dunbar is sending subliminal messages of how African-Americans...
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...this paper I will briefly compare two pieces of literature and their authors. The first is “We Wear the Mask (1896)” by Paul Laurence Dunbar and "Richard Cory (1897)" by Edward Arlington Robinson. I really enjoy poetry and was amazed at the similarities found in these two pieces despite the very noticeable difference in the authors. I started of my paper with a quote from an unknown author which will help set the tone for the two poems I will be comparing. This quote describes something we all have at one time or another. We all have at some point in our lives encountered (or will encounter) a time where we have to do or go through something that we did not want to do or experience. A time where we cannot let on to others what we are truly feeling inside. Whether it is at work or staying strong for family or friends or just putting on a front for the world. These two authors wrote poems about this very thing. Paul L Dunbar was born in Dayton Ohio on June 22, 1872 to parents who had been enslaved prior to the civil war. Just about 3 years earlier Edward Arlington Robinson was born on December 22, 1869. His parents were very well off. There is so much to be said about the lives of these two great men and the things that they experienced and the contributions they made to American Literature. However, for the sake of this comparison I will point out only that Dunbar was poor black man that was born during a very difficult time for people of his race and Robinson was a White man born...
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...“Sympathy” a poem written by Paul Laurence Dunbar can be interpreted in many different ways. An approach to interpreting this poem can start with an in-depth examination of the word use and vocabulary used to show the author feeling toward the subject. Another interpretation can be looked at from the figurative language used to form a metaphor. The metaphor chosen in this particular poem is a caged bird. The caged bird represents anyone who feels as if they are trapped or stuck in a certain circumstance and cant get out. The Arthur was referring to the metaphor as his parents stuck in there slavery. The caged bird is a good way to show how a slave or how a person feels when they are trapped or feel like they are in a scenario that they can't get out of. Today people relate to that same feeling, weather they are addicted to drugs or alcohol, or they are in a rough circumstances that they cant get out of and can't do what they want....
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...Literally essay Of Mice and Men Comparison The experience of the speaker in Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” is comparable to Crooks experience in chapter 4 of John Steinbach’s Of Mice and Men. The mask being figurative refers to the emotional mask that covers and conceals one emotion which many blacks wore while being segregated because they were afraid of what would happen if they showed their true feelings. Crooks had a similar experience in chapter 4 in Steinbeck’s book in which he backed down from an argument because he was afraid of the consequences that might fall on him because he was black. One of the lines from Dunbar’s poem shows how effective one could use the mask to hide their anguish and sadness. “We wear the mask that grins and lies- It hides our cheeks and shades our eye-“, the people in this poem used this “mask” to shade their eyes and cheeks which made other people incapable of seeing their true. This method of blocking true emotions is effective because often you can see the real feelings and emotions of a person by looking into their eyes and cheeks which are supposedly “gateways” to one’s true self. By putting on an emotionless and blank persona you can show no sign of you ever being tortured by the hateful words thrown at you. Likewise Crooks also has to deal with hurtful comments such as the N word yet he abides and remains throughout the rest of the chapter with a blank emotionless tone and voice. In chapter 4 page 81, Curley’s wife...
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...going terrible with that one person they just do not want to share their emotions. It is not an uncommon idea, and it never has been. In Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem We Wear the Mask, he argues from experience that slaves were hiding their pain and suffering with a mask of contentment, which blinded the whites to the harm they were inflicting on the slaves. Dunbar’s poem expressed the concealed pain and suffering that black slaves often encountered. He wanted to express the struggle for equality for blacks. The black slaves hid their pain from the whites or their owners so that they would not see weakness or show desperation. The feelings could consist of anger, pain, frustration, sadness and many more. In Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem We Wear the Mask, he first illustrates how the people in the poem wear masks. “We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,” (Line 1&2, pg. 963) here Dunbar is illustrating that the slaves wore these masks in hiding of all emotions whether grinning or lying. However, one might also argue that the ‘mask’ might serve just to lie to the people observing it, or whether it is to lie to the actual person wearing the mask. When picturing someone wearing an actual physical mask, the typical mask usually covers just enough of that person’s face to come across as a mystery. That is what Dunbar is trying to do with this idea of wearing a mask of emotions. In the line “…hides our cheeks and shades our eyes” (Line 2, pg 963)...
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...When It’s All Unravel Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem titled, “Sympathy” is an exceptionally memorable and boisterous poem. This poem alludes to the pain that the African American people felt while imprisoned by slavery. Then the poem speaks of African American’s being emancipated, yet still suffering from being deprived of their equal rights and racism. Though this poem serves a significant purpose within the world, the way in which Dunbar wrote this poem is very appealing to the eyes of not only poets but to all readers. “Sympathy” consists of three stanzas and in each stanza there is a rhyming pattern of ABCCBAA, ABAABAA, ABCCBAA, which makes it a little easier for one to understand. “Sympathy,” tells a story about what African American people felt and had to face in the late 19th century to the early 20th century. In the very first line of the first stanza it states, “I KNOW what the caged bird feels, alas,” is very symbolic to the lost of liberation and freedom. But to be more specific the caged bird is a metaphor for the African American people, who were struggling to find liberation and freedom. When a bird is caged it can only fly within a designated space never being able to completely spread its wings and sore freely. Occasionally the bird gets tired of being confine to such a secluded area, the bird then tries to escape but is usually unsuccessful and is left with an abundant amount of injuries. In the first stanza, the bird is clearly being deprived of its God given...
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...Influences on Paul Laurence Dunbar’s Work In the late eighteen hundreds, America was no longer a fledgling nation, now well established and rapidly evolving on the inside. These forces of change are most clearly exemplified by literary works in this time period. The short story “The Lynching of Jube Benson”, by Paul Laurence Dunbar, is a reactionary piece to the new forms and mediums of racism taking flight during this time. While lynching was not invented during the late eighteenth century, lynching reached the height of its popularity with the emergence of the first Ku Klux Klan. The primary target of this lawless group were African Americans. The state of this practice is criticized in the Dunbar’s short story. Upon reading of the...
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...Paul Laurence Dunbar was born in Dayton Ohio. He was the son of two former slaves, but he never experienced slavery. His parents were very literate, and taught him how to read and write. Dunbar was the only student of color who attended his high school (Braxton 1). He stood out from other students because of his intelligence. He graduated from high school in 1891. Dunbar was inspired by poets such as John Keats, William Wordsworth, etc. His poetry became increasingly complex as he continued to read the works of these poets and others. Dunbar experienced discrimination, and was forced to get a job as a elevator operator in a hotel. He was known as the “elevator boy poet” (Braxton 2). Dunbar was very dedicated to poetry. Dunbar married a free black named Alice Ruth Moore in 1898. She was also very intellectual. They separated after 4 years, but they still remained friends. During that time, Dunbar contracted tuberculosis. As a poet, he stayed loyal to the black community. His work was recognized and appreciated by the black community. Dunbar continued to be inspired by other poets, and his work became even more complex. His poems were nationally recognized by blacks and whites alike. After years, his works resurfaced, and he became the inspiration for many future poets....
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...In the 1920s and early 1930s a movement called the Harlem Renaissance took place. This was a literary, artistic and intellectual movement that created a new black cultural identity ("Harlem Renaissance," n.d.). There was an important group that was created during the Harlem Renaissance known as the NAACP. Also, there were important trials such as Sacco and Vanzetti, and the conviction in Scottsboro, Alabama. During the Harlem Renaissance many famous writers such as Paul Dunbar, and Langston Hughes wrote about what african americans experienced during this time. An influential poem written by Paul Dunbar during the Harlem Renaissance is We Wear the Mask, which talks about disguising our feelings. Langston Hughes also wrote influential poems such as I, Too and Song for a Dark Girl . There were many important things that happened during the Harlem Renaissance, including the creation of influential poems by...
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...“Sympathy” focuses on the repercussions of 256 years of slavery which were still felt almost 35 years after its abolition. Dunbar asserts that the African American community still feels these ramifications in the lines, “… a pain still throbs in the old, old scars / and they pulse again with a keener sting” (Dunbar, 12-13). Since slavery was forced into African American heritage with lasting effects, Dunbar does not want them to forget their past by assimilating into American culture. In the following lines Dunbar says, “I know why the caged bird sings, ah me, / … When he beats his bars and he would be free; / It is not a carol of joy or glee, / but a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core” (Dunbar, 15-19). The “caged bird” refers to the slaves that were imprisoned by their owners and the line “It is not a carol of joy or glee” is a direct reference to the hymns and spirituals that slaves sang in the fields. Within “Sympathy” it is easy to decipher that he does not want the African American population to forget their...
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...We Wear the Mask “We Wear the Mask” is a poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar that emphasizes on how slaves had to conceal their pain and misery in a white-dominated culture. If African-Americans were to reveal their true feelings, it could result in their own demise. With this knowledge in mind Dunbar created this poem in such an artistic way that no one suspected the real meaning of “We Wear the Mask.” Dunbar’s use of alliteration and iambic tetrameter rhythm forms a method of hidden self-expression for the author while the reader can also relate to the poem in their own way. While interpreting this poem the reader will discover that the mask represents an individual hiding their true feelings about their own difficult situation. It could pertain to a person going through divorce, loss of a family member, or a teenager under pressure with school. Problems vary with each person and their own life. The reason why this poem is so relatable to any reader is because Dunbar never specified the true meaning within this poem therefore...
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...The masks of a common teenager Paul Laurence’s “We Wear the Mask” starts with a metaphor to an unspecific “we” saying that a mask of happiness hides our internal sadness. This ties to the conforming towards the hiding of one's feelings. He emphasizes the sadness of one's feelings, but always ends each allusion towards this pain is always followed by an opposite example of how this pain is covered up. As he repeats his use of large categories to define who endures these pains, it becomes clear that he speaks of everyone conforming to society. A common other theme is the lies said to others and oneself, as it becomes clear that this “mask” is used to convince everyone that you are happy. This never changes that everyone is living through torture and it doesn't help to lie about it. This is appropriate for the author, because Paul Laurence Dunbar was an African American writing...
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