Exploring the Text

Access the text here.

  1. What does Paul Laurence Dunbar mean by “This debt we pay to human guile” (l. 3)? What are the “myriad subtleties” (l. 5)?

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Exploring the Text: - What does Paul Laurence Dunbar mean by “This debt we pay to human guile” (l. 3)? What are the “myriad subtleties” (l. 5)?
  2. Who are the “tortured souls” (l. 11)? How do you interpret “the clay is vile / Beneath our feet, and long the mile” (ll. 12–13)?

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Exploring the Text: - Who are the “tortured souls” (l. 11)? How do you interpret “the clay is vile / Beneath our feet, and long the mile” (ll. 12–13)?
  3. In both stanzas 2 and 3, the speaker contrasts appearance and reality in two different situations (and with two different examples). What do they have in common?

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Exploring the Text: - In both stanzas 2 and 3, the speaker contrasts appearance and reality in two different situations (and with two different examples). What do they have in common?
  4. What is the relationship between the speaker and the audience? What is the effect of using first-person plural?

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Exploring the Text: - What is the relationship between the speaker and the audience? What is the effect of using first-person plural?
  5. How would you characterize the tone of this poem?

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Exploring the Text: - How would you characterize the tone of this poem?
  6. Imagine that you did not know that Dunbar was African American or that the poem is generally understood within a racial context. In what ways could the poem be about the “mask(s)” that most humans present to the exterior world?

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Exploring the Text: - Imagine that you did not know that Dunbar was African American or that the poem is generally understood within a racial context. In what ways could the poem be about the “mask(s)” that most humans present to the exterior world?
  7. Dunbar has been severely criticized by other African American writers for his dialect poetry, which many feel perpetuates racial stereotypes. Critic Joanne Braxton looks to “We Wear the Mask” to counter such criticism, making the point that here Dunbar is writing about the mask he was forced to wear to conceal the truth behind “his comic drama, his witty lyricism, and his use of irony” in those poems. How might you interpret the poem as Dunbar’s defense of the poetic mask he wore in order to appeal to a wide readership?

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Exploring the Text: - Dunbar has been severely criticized by other African American writers for his dialect poetry, which many feel perpetuates racial stereotypes. Critic Joanne Braxton looks to “We Wear the Mask” to counter such criticism, making the point that here Dunbar is writing about the mask he was forced to wear to conceal the truth behind “his comic drama, his witty lyricism, and his use of irony” in those poems. How might you interpret the poem as Dunbar’s defense of the poetic mask he wore in order to appeal to a wide readership?