The Full Text of “We Wear the Mask”
1We wear the mask that grins and lies,
2It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
3This debt we pay to human guile;
4With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
5And mouth with myriad subtleties.
6Why should the world be over-wise,
7In counting all our tears and sighs?
8Nay, let them only see us, while
9 We wear the mask.
10We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
11To thee from tortured souls arise.
12We sing, but oh the clay is vile
13Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
14But let the world dream otherwise,
15 We wear the mask!
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“We Wear the Mask” Introduction
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"We Wear the Mask" was written by African American poet and novelist Paul Laurence Dunbar in 1895. Like much of Dunbar's work, "We Wear the Mask" is a reaction to the experience of being black in America in the late 19th century, following the Civil War—a period when life seemed to have improved for black Americans yet in reality was still marked by intense racism and hardship. Dunbar compares surviving the pain of oppression to wearing a mask that hides the suffering of its wearer while presenting a more joyful face to the world. All that said, the poem itself does not specifically mention race; its message is applicable to any circumstance in which marginalized people are forced to present a brave face in order to survive in an unsympathetic, prejudiced society.
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“We Wear the Mask” Summary
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We all wear a mask that makes it look like we're happy, but this is a lie. The mask covers our cheeks and casts a shadow over our eyes. This mask is the price we pay for the fact that people are capable of such deceit. We smile despite feeling as though our hearts have been broken and battered, and we make thousands of careful little tweaks as we speak to others so as not to reveal our true selves.
What use it would be for the rest of society to pay close attention to all the details of our suffering? No, society will only see us while our faces are hidden behind the mask.
But even as we smile, on the inside we're crying out to God from the depths of our tortured souls. We sing, but the mud we must walk through is disgusting, and the mile through which we must walk feels so long. Despite all this, let the rest of society pretend that we're not suffering. Meanwhile, we'll keep wearing the mask!
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“We Wear the Mask” Themes
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Oppression, Racism, and Identity
"We Wear the Mask" speaks to the experience of being a member of an oppressed group. The speaker is part of a community of people who must constantly "mask" their true feelings while presenting a happy face to the world. As a result, these people effectively have two identities: a true self, hidden behind the mask, and the self they present to simply get by in a prejudiced society.
Although race isn’t mentioned in this poem, it is essential to its meaning: most of Dunbar’s work engaged with race in some way, and this mask metaphor extends itself to the specific experience of being black in America at the end of the 19th century—a time when black people often had to hide their suffering in order to survive in an unjust and unsympathetic society. That said, the poem can also be taken as an account of the pain and frustration of being forced to endure societal oppression and prejudice more generally.
While most people can probably relate to the idea of having to mask their emotions at certain times in life, the poem doesn't necessarily speak to the individual so much as it attempts to describe the feelings of an entire group of people. The poem begins with the speaker repeating the title, insisting that "We wear the mask that grins and lies." The mask does not grin or lie, but grins and lies simultaneously, demonstrating to the reader that the smile of the mask is never genuine. Indeed, the speaker confirms that there is deep suffering behind this presentation of joy, telling the reader that their hearts are "torn and bleeding" and their "souls" are "tortured."
Adding to the poem's power is the fact that, in much of the poetry and literature that depicts African Americans, there is a trope of the "happy slave"—an enslaved person who is perfectly content with their circumstances. This trope was used as a justification for slavery: if enslaved people are treated well by their masters and can experience happiness, the thinking went, then slavery couldn't be all that bad.
This poem seeks to undo this stereotype and expose it as being nothing but a performance for survival. Indeed, the speaker references their own anguish throughout the entirety of the poem, most often pairing it with the image of the mask. "We smile, but," the speaker states, demonstrating to the reader that, regardless of their appearance or how genuine it seems, behind it is a constant state of agony. Part of the pain of oppression, the poem ultimately argues, is not just being forced to hide the truth, but having to perform a lie.
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Empowerment and Resilience
Throughout "We Wear the Mask," the speaker describes deep and prolonged suffering. The group in this poem have "torn and bleeding hearts," express "tears and sighs," and are "tortured souls" who must constantly pretend they are not struggling. However, there is also a sense of resilience running through the poem. Wearing this "mask" is a constant reminder of their oppression, but it also, in a way, binds this group together—creating a sense of camaraderie and shared strength that helps them endure such pain.
The phrase "We Wear the Mask" is both the title of the poem and its refrain. The repetition of the phrase throughout the poem illustrates that it has become a sort of mantra to this group. In the conclusion of the poem, the phrase even becomes an exclamation—"We wear the mask!"—thus giving the final line a sense of enthusiasm, and perhaps even a sense of pride.
Also note how, in line 5, the speaker almost boastfully explains that this group can "mouth with myriad subtleties." This line suggests to the reader that members of this group hold a level of expertise in their form of deceit. Though they certainly don't enjoy their circumstances, they do seem able to feel pride and a sense of accomplishment when they perform their craft well.
Later, the speaker remarks that "we sing" even though "the clay is vile / Beneath our feet" and the miles they must walk in it are "long," indicating that, while the journey is difficult, they can and will continue to endure it with a brave face. This demonstrates that the group is strong, both in spite of their suffering and because of it.
This is also language in this poem that suggests that the mask is a choice (though this choice could be an illusion). The speaker says, with an arguable air of triumph, "let them only see us while / We wear the mask," and "let the world dream otherwise, / We wear the mask!"
Seeing as the speaker is oppressed, it is unlikely that the mask is truly optional—at least, not without facing further consequences for removing it. To take off the mask could potentially mean not being able to survive in a society that seeks to oppress the speaker. However, the group can feel empowered from choosing to go on as opposed to giving up. Thus, the speaker and their group can find confidence as they continue to use the mask and survive their ordeal.
In lines 6 and 7, the speaker poses a rhetorical question: "Why should the world be over-wise / In counting all our tears and sighs?" While this question suggests that "the world" the speaker refers to would be unsympathetic to their plight, it also offers that, perhaps, the world does not deserve to know the anguish of the speaker. As a marginalized people, it may benefit them to shield their suffering from their oppressors, as it denies the oppressor the opportunity to enjoy (or at least know the true extent of) the power they hold. This, in turn, can shift the sense of control the group has, and give them a sense of strength and unity.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “We Wear the Mask”
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Lines 1-2
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—The first line repeats the poem's title and introduces its extended metaphor. The mask, which represents the false emotions a person might "wear" in front of other people, both smiles and lies—which indicates that the outward appearance of the mask does not match the true emotions that are beneath it. In other words, the people who wear this mask aren't smiling, and aren't happy. While readers don't know exactly who these people are, it's already clear that they must for some reason hide what they're thinking and feeling from the rest of the world. The phrase "We wear the mask" will also repeat two more times in the poem as a refrain, never letting the reader forget the burden this group carries.
The first line also introduces the speaker, who uses the pronoun "we" throughout. The speaker is not necessarily an individual, then, but rather a representative of a larger group. Though subjective, readers could even potentially include themselves as being a member of this "we"—and maybe empathize with the struggles of the community being described.
The second line continues to describe the mask as covering the entirety of the speaker's face, demonstrating that the mask fully obscures any features which could give away the speaker's true emotions. In particular, note how the mask casts a shadow over the eyes of those who wear it. Eyes are often used in poetry (and literature in general) to represent a person's truest self—think of the phrase "eyes are the window to the soul." The fact that this mask "shades" its wearers' eyes emphasizes how much the wearers must hide not just what they're feeling, but who they are.
These lines also introduce the poem's meter, which is a pretty steady iambic tetrameter—meaning most lines have four stressed and four unstressed syllables in the following alternating pattern:
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—Iambs mimic the way people tend to speak in regular English, lending the poem a casual, colloquial feel. The focus here isn't on fancy or overly poetic language, but rather on conveying a clear message to the reader—something the poem's straightforward meter reflects.
Readers will also note the clear, perfect rhymes between lines 1 and 2 ("lies" and "eyes"), which mark the beginning of the poem's Rondeau rhyme scheme (something we'll talk about more in "Rhyme Scheme"). What's important to know here is that these AA rhymes will repeat in every stanza of the poem going forward, creating a sonic echo and sense of consistency that ties the poem together.
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Line 3
This debt we pay to human guile;
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Lines 4-5
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties. -
Lines 6-7
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs? -
Lines 8-9
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask. -
Lines 10-11
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise. -
Lines 12-13
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile; -
Lines 14-15
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
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“We Wear the Mask” Symbols
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The Mask
The poem uses the mask to, not surprisingly, symbolize deception: it is a tool that this marginalized group uses to trick the rest of society into thinking that they're happy and complacent.
The mask also highlights the dual-nature of this deception: the mask both hides the true face of its wearer while also presenting a false identity to the world. Notice how the mask mentioned in the first line both grins and lies, illustrating that it must conceal and be seen. In other words, while the mask hides the face, it also allows its wearer to control how others perceive them.
In this particular poem, the mask is a tool used by the black community to endure suffering under white supremacy. The mask, then, is not simply a tool for deception, but also for survival. While many black citizens protested their treatment white supremacy, the consequences for doing so could be severe, even fatal. Thus, many black people had to adopt the "mask"—to hide their true feelings—in order to live under the contemptuous eye of white society without causing any need for further scrutiny.
This tool speaks to American activist and author W.E.B. Du Bois's idea of "double consciousness," which sees the oppressed person as having a split sense of self: a public and private identity, one of which conforms to the society that oppresses it, and the other of which rejects it.
The symbolic resonance of the mask also changes throughout the poem. In the first stanza, the mask is clearly a burden to those who must wear it. However, over time, the mask becomes a representation of pride and resilience. The speaker of the poem understands that it is fruitless to seek validation from those who oppress the speaker's community, and thus, the speaker uses the mask to gain control over the situation. While the community the speaker represents does not have the opportunity to change its immediate circumstances, the mask gives its wearers the confidence to navigate their oppression with society being none-the-wiser.
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Clay
In line 12, the speaker refers to a "clay" that is "vile." This clay isn't the kind of stuff you mold in art class. "Clay" is often used in literature as shorthand for dry, cracked ground/earth on which people walk, while "vile" essentially means wicked, disgusting, or horrible. Here, then, the "vile clay" could be interpreted as representing the speaker's actual environment. Essentially, the world that the speaker must endure is filled with horrific prejudice and injustice. In this reading, "clay" becomes a metonym—the ground itself coming to represent the society in which the speaker lives.
If the reader chooses to see the poem as a reference specifically to black oppression, then this clay could symbolically represent the poor conditions that black people were subjected to under the institution of slavery. Even more specifically, this clay could evoke the imagery of the plantation; many of the enslaved black population were used as physical laborers for Southern plantations, forced to work long hours in extreme conditions with little-to-no rest, food, water, or adequate clothing.
Because of the poem's focus on the speaker's internal struggle, it is just as likely that this clay is a symbolic representation of the speaker's emotional landscape. The clay, here, suggests an intolerable environment surrounding the speaker and heightens the stakes of the mask. While the speaker has suggested previously that they are an expert in deception and that they choose to wear the mask to hide their pain, the reference to walking through "vile" clay indicates that wearing the mask is not necessarily an easy feat. The clay thus also implicitly reflects the speaker's emotional endurance. The emotional labor of wearing the mask takes its toll on the speaker in a way that feels as if the speaker is also struggling physically.
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“We Wear the Mask” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Extended Metaphor
First introduced in the title (which also acts as a refrain), the extended metaphor of the mask serves as the backbone of the poem. The speaker explains the meaning of the mask to the reader in the first stanza, illustrating that this metaphorical mask is a tool used for deceiving others. As the speaker continues, the mask is revealed to be more than a simple con, meant to trick others out of amusement—more specifically, this mask is used to hide its wearers' pain and suffering.
Of course, the group the speaker is a part of doesn't literally wear a mask over their faces at all times; instead, the mask represents the fact that these people have to constantly calibrate their expressions to appease an oppressive, prejudiced society. Members of this marginalized group cannot show their true faces to the world without risking repercussions.
The use of extended metaphor regarding the mask allows the reader to understand the many intricacies of what it means to be oppressed. The mask is initially presented as a forced tool of deception that eventually blossoms into a point of pride: in stanzas 2 and 3, the speaker seems to adopt a tone of defiance while discussing the mask, suggesting that the speaker (and the group associated with the speaker) has begun to celebrate their own ability to survive in such an unjust world.
Overall, then, the mask is a tool of survival and thus representative of the pain of oppression, but it is also a symbolic representation of the speaker's endurance and resilience. When the speaker exclaims, "We wear the mask!" in the final line, the reader is able to understand that the exclamation is one of anger, defiance, exhaustion, and celebration all in one.
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Refrain
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Enjambment
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Alliteration
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Consonance
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Rhetorical Question
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Allusion
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Caesura
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Assonance
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End-Stopped Line
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Apostrophe
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“We Wear the Mask” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Guile
- Myriad
- Subtleties
- Over-wise
- Nay
- Vile
Guile-
Guile refers to being sly or cunning. When one has guile, this means they are being deceptive, but perhaps in a way that comes across as charming.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “We Wear the Mask”
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Form
"We Wear the Mask" is a variation of the rondeau, a form that originated in France in the 14th and 15th centuries. A rondeau consists of three stanzas that incorporate a refrain and a specific rhyme scheme.
The rondeau has many variants, but the one used here has 15 lines broken up into a quintain (five lines), quatrain (four lines), and a sestet (six lines), with the refrain "We wear the mask" appearing in last lines of the second and third stanzas.
The rondeau was originally paired with music and dancing, with the refrain being sung. This might be subtly alluded to by the singing mentioned in line 12. More broadly, given that singing and dancing are often seen as expressions of joy, the poem's form itself can be thought of as a kind of "mask": even as the poem describes the emotional pain and suffering, it has a pleasant rhythm and meter. If you were to hear this poem without paying close attention to the words, you might even be temporarily enchanted by the steady, bouncy pacing. Like the mask, then, the poem's form is somewhat deceiving.
What's more, given that the poem can be read as speaking specifically to the way black people must pretend to be content while being oppressed by society, the musicality of the rondeau could also be seen as a knowing nod towards the offensive trope of the "happy slave." This trope often included instances of an enslaved black person engaging in song and dance, meant to be a sign of said person's joy.
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Meter
"We Wear the Mask" employs a fairly regular iambic tetrameter. Each line contains eight syllables in an unstressed-stressed pattern, with the only exceptions being lines 9 and 15.
For example, line 1 is an example of regular iambic tetrameter:
We wear | the mask | that grins | and lies,
The line begins with an unstressed syllable ("We") and follows that with a stressed syllable ("wear"). "We wear" thus represents one iambic foot. The rest of this line follows the same pattern.
Iambs closely mimic the sound of regular English speech, granting the poem a colloquial feel—a simplicity of sound that belies the complicated, painful themes being broached. The clear, consistent meter it perhaps itself a kind of "mask" for the turmoil bubbling underneath the surface of the poem.
However, this pattern is broken in lines 9 and 15, when the refrain is introduced. Unlike the rest of the poem, the refrain is written in iambic dimeter, meaning there are only two iambs in the lines (and just four syllables total):
We wear | the mask.
The regularity of the meter throughout this poem enhances the intensity of the much shorter refrain. In other words, in limiting the variation of the meter, the speaker builds expectations that are broken when introducing the refrain. This, in turn, enhances the importance of the refrain, while preventing the regularity of the rhyme scheme and meter from sounding too monotonous.
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Rhyme Scheme
"We Wear the Mask" employs the rhyme scheme of the 15-line rondeau (though it is important to note that the rondeau form has many variations). The rhyme scheme is as follows:
AABBA AABC AABBAC
The "C" in this pattern represents the refrain of the rondeau. The first and the last stanza of the poem follow the exact same rhyme scheme (with the exception of the refrain in the third stanza). Each stanza opens with a rhyming couplet using the same "A" rhyme, creating a sense of echoing and internal consistency. Most of this poem also uses perfect rhymes, allowing the reader/listener to focus more on the ideas being discussed than to get tripped up by overly complicated language.
However, there is one slant rhyme with the word "subtleties" in line 5. This is an important moment that contributes to the poem's exploration of deception. The nearly-perfect rhyme scheme builds an expectation of steadiness in the reader, which is then subverted by the slant-rhyme.
This also contributes to sustaining the "subtlety" of expression being described in this line, with the word itself becoming a nearly-imperceptible moment of subversion: because the word "subtleties" doesn't rhyme perfectly with "lies" or "eyes," it appears to be out of place. However, to a keen ear, the slant rhyme suggests a deliberate slip of the mask, allowing the reader to experience the speaker's expertise in quiet deception.
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“We Wear the Mask” Speaker
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The speaker of "We Wear the Mask" never refers to an individual self—rather than saying, "I wear the mask," the speaker only uses the pronoun "we." By using "we," the reader understands that the speaker is not an outsider or observer, but rather a member of the group being talked about throughout the poem. The speaker is thus both anonymous and genderless, representative of an entire community of people rather than a single human being.
Generally, it is important to separate the identity of the poet from the speaker of a poem. However, it can be safely assumed (based on the context of the time period, the race of the author, and the overall themes of Dunbar's work at large) that this poem is speaking specifically to the black experience under white supremacy. In other words, while the reader could extend the "we" to generally represent any oppressed group, it is perhaps most informative, given the context, to see the "we" as being representative of the black community.
Many scholars have also noted that "We Wear the Mask" could be linked to Dunbar's more controversial dialectic work. Dialectics, or dialect, refers to work that seeks to evoke the language of a particular place or region. Dunbar, for example, would sometimes use a dialect considered specific to black people in the antebellum South, often referred to as a "Negro dialect." Here is an example from Dunbar's "A Cabin Tale":
Whut you say, dah? huh, uh! chile,
You's enough to dribe me wile.Dunbar's use of "Negro dialect" in certain works has been criticized as being inaccurate and used to appeal to white readers by adopting racial stereotypes. Scholars have argued that this poem in particular could be Dunbar's way of illustrating that he was well-aware of the prejudices in his dialectic work and that, perhaps upon a closer read, they expose a more nuanced and abstract portrait of black experience through the writer himself.
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“We Wear the Mask” Setting
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"We Wear the Mask" offers little information in regards to physical setting. Although the third stanza does mention the "clay," beneath the speaker's feet, this image is more metaphorical than literal, as it is meant to demonstrate the harsh emotional environment surrounding the speaker. That being said, were the reader to believe that the poem was meant to illustrate the experience of victims of the United States slave trade, then the environmental details could be interpreted more literally.
The reader could see the poem as taking place during the late 1800s in the United States, as this was the time and place in which the poem was written. However, the poem is generalized enough that it is applicable to any point in time in which an oppressed group of people have suffered.
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Literary and Historical Context of “We Wear the Mask”
Literary Context
Paul Laurence Dunbar published "We Wear the Mask" in his collection Lyrics of Lowly Life in 1896. While the poem's language and themes are representative of the majority of Dunbar's writing, the poet's popularity in the late 1800s had much to do with his work in something called dialectics (literary work that evokes the language of a specific region or country), especially in regards to his popularity with white readers.
Dunbar's use of "Negro dialect" is debated among scholars (as is the concept of "Negro dialect" in general, as many consider it to be a racist caricature). Some argue that Dunbar's dialectic work is both inaccurate to the groups he seeks to represent and a perpetuation of racist stereotypes meant to attract white readership. Others counter that his dialectic work represents only a fraction of his literary output. "We Wear the Mask" is an especially pertinent poem in this conversation, as many believe that it is Dunbar's way of acknowledging and complicating his dialectic work.
"We Wear the Mask" is also not the only poem in which Dunbar explores his own personal use of the "mask.""The Poet," for example, describes a poet who "sang of life" in all of its multitudes but was only praised by "the world" when singing "a jingle in a broken tongue" (that is, in dialect). It appears that Dunbar struggled with feeling somehow complicit in regards to using racist stereotypes in his own writing, but simultaneously compelled to continue doing so because it was the only work white society chose to recognize.
Dunbar's contemporaries included activists and writers W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, and Frederick Douglass, as well as James D. Corrothers (who wrote poems specifically citing Dunbar, such as "Me 'n' Dunbar," and "Paul Laurence Dunbar.") and his own wife, poet and musician Alice Moore Dunbar Nelson. Unlike her husband, Alice was criticized for lacking racial themes in her work, with her rebuttal being that she intended to expand upon what black literature could look like, citing that black people could write about more than just the experience of being black or a Southerner.
Famous black poet and activist Maya Angelou cites Dunbar as a major literary influence: the title for her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, is a line from Dunbar's poem, "Sympathy." Angelou also adapted "We Wear the Mask," in which she expanded upon its themes of race, oppression, and survival.
Historical Context
Dunbar was a poet of the post-Reconstruction era of the United States. Reconstruction, which lasted from 1863-1877, was a significant era in the history of civil rights, as it marked the end of both slavery and the Southern state's secession. The term "Reconstruction" both refers to the era, and also refers to the attempt at transforming the former Confederate states after the Civil War.
Reconstruction is largely considered a failure by most historians, for various reasons. For one thing, during this time the "Black Codes" were established in the American South to restrict the recently-freed black population in an attempt to maintain political and social dominance. The Black Codes eventually evolved into Jim Crow laws, which established racial segregation. The Reconstruction era also saw the beginnings of terrorist group the Klu Klux Klan, which targeted black leaders with racially-motivated violence. Thus, while slavery has been outlawed in the United States by Dunbar's day, this certainly did not mark an end to the suffering and discrimination of black Americans.
The year in which "We Wear the Mask" was published—1896—was also the same year in which the United States Supreme Court upheld the legality of racial segregation, via the Plessy v. Ferguson court case. Homer Plessy, a biracial man from Louisiana, violated the Separate Car Act, which stated that white people and black people must ride in separate train cars. The case went to trial and ultimately resulted in a loss for Plessy, with the Supreme Court establishing that, as long as public facilities were "equal" in quality, the separation of black people from white people was constitutional.
This emotional impact of this event (and of racial segregation and racism as a whole) roots itself in "We Wear the Mask," which highlights the coded ways in which the African American people conducted themselves under white supremacy.
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More “We Wear the Mask” Resources
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External Resources
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A Reading of "We Wear the Mask" — Listen to the poem read out loud.
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Dunbar's Life and Legacy — More information about Paul Laurence Dunbar's biography from the Poetry Foundation.
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Critiques of the Poem — An archive of scholarly critiques of "We Wear the Mask."
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Maya Angelou's Interpretation — Maya Angelou reads her adaptation of Dunbar's poem, which further expands upon the themes of black experience, coded language, and survival.
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More Poems by Dunbar — Access to more of the poet's literary work.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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