We Wear the Mask

write a response to a poem

1- copy the poem “We Wear the Mask” and annotate it as you read it several times. (this annotated must be turned in with the paper.)

2- then from your annotations think about what elements stand out.

3-from there, think about the meaning, the main idea and how the poet expressed that idea- the methods used to get there.

4- choose 4-3 elements and analyze how they work together to contribute to and develop the theme.

5- write a—- thesis (your argument) that you will support in your paper.

Helpful Tips

(1) State the full name of the author and the poem’s title near the start of the
paper Do not use the title as a reference.

(2) Know that a clear THESIS should be stated in the first paragraph.

(3) When using lines from the poem (and you must!) to support your
Points, introduce before the quote as “In line 8 the speaker says/.. /”
OR use quotation marks and put the lines in parentheses after them as
(lines 3-9).

(4) When you use individual words or phrases, just put them in quotes and
Then identify ail the lines used at the end of the sentence (lines 2, 8-9)

(5) For every line that you quote there should be just as much analysis of it. Why
did you pick this quote out anyway? How does it support your argument?

(6) Remember to cite the poem at the end of the paper using MLA format (a
number of examples are in LBH and Norton along with your other sources.

(7) All sources are to be correctly cited in the text. Remember to USE your sources
to support your thesis, not allowing them to dominate what you have to say.
Also remember that a summary oi a poem or a paraphrase is NOT analysis. You are
drawing conclusions and deriving implications from the text — thereby creating
your job-proving and supporting them. Stay with the text of the poem.
DETAILS! DETAILS! Specific references—no generalized statements without support
and evidence from the text or from critics.
Do not form a MORAL teaching from your poem and call it THEME. Most poems are
not meant to moralize or teach but rather to express what the poet has discovered
with an inner or an outer experience.

Sources: Look for credible journal articles and books: literature Online and Jstor as well as others on the
library website are good places to start. No questionable articles from the Internet will be considered
solid sources. Summaries and paraphrases are not explication. Some biographical information might
help understand the poem as well as historical/psychological/sociological backgrounds.

-the poem (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 overwise,
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!