The Booker T Powerpoint
We Wear the Mask
Paul Lawrence 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 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! 1896
Paul Lawrence Dunbar (1872-1906)
- Wrote dialect and non-dialect poems
- As his life progressed, he developed an ambivalence toward his own work
- Theme of being restricted or concealed (even in the act of expression) appears multiple times in his work (see “Sympathy”)
- His dialect poems were often admired by whites more than blacks, and admired for their quaintness more than their sorrow or realism
- a contemporary of DuBois and Washington (appears in Up From Slavery), Dunbar provides a touchstone for the issues engaged by both writers.
Key Issues I will discuss in Up From Slavery
- Use of Dialect (as in dialect poetry)
- White Perception of Washington’s Message
- DuBois’s Criticism
Use of Dialect
- Five major uses of dialect
- (major= one sentence or more)
- 45, 54, 62, 64, 104
- His reception of it ranges from considering it simple and/or charming to adopting a sort of jeering tone
- Washington’s use of dialect sets up a linguistic divorce between himself and the poor black hoi polloi. Washington’s own diction is that of the educated, mostly white class and it stands in stark contrast to the language that he puts in the mouths of the poor black people whose words he recounts. In this way he reaffirms his choice of an educated, generally white audience and reasserts intellectual education as something he holds in high esteem.
White Reception of Washington’s Message
- Two particular instances really stick out:
- pages 110 and 117
- Grover Cleveland: “delight and encourage,” “if our coloured…indeed”
- World: only direct quotation “…separate…mutual,” Negroes crying “without knowing why”
Clearly the white audiences do key into the part of his message that stresses own-bootstrap-lifting and potential for segregation
DuBois’s Criticism
DuBois echoes the emphasis of Cleveland and New York World: describes Washington’s policy as “submission” to whites three times in his brief critique chapter. Also, speaks in a way that allies Washington with “industrial slavery,” “civic death,” and “permanent legislation into a position of inferiority,” while distancing Washington from “patriotism,” “loyalty to oppose such a [submissive] course,” and, most interestingly, manliness. In fact, DuBois harshly criticizes Washington’s emphasis on labor even as he castigates Washington’s lack in masculinity. Equating mental and physical submission with unmanliness, DuBois thus forwards a notion of masculinity that emphasizes not the appearance of the male body but an autonomy over the male body and mind.
