Doorlag Bethany Doorlag Dr.

Melanie Crow English 1100 7 December 2012

Behind the Mask: A Formalist Biographical Analysis of We Wear the Mask with Perspective from Ellisons Battle Royal Paul Laurence Dunbar, an African American poet from the 19th century, is famed for his mastery in both Standard English and the African American dialect and their use in his poetry. Coming from the background of the first generation of African Americans who were born free citizens, much of his poetry contains references to the life of slaves and the still ongoing social oppression in the everyday life of an African American in the still hostile South. In a similar vein, yet a hundred years later, Ralph Waldo Ellison, an African American writer in the 20th century, became a famed writer through his novel, Invisible Man, which includes the short story, Battle Royal. This short story addresses the controversial issue of race in society, particularly how African Americans interact with white Americans, through the literary elements of rhetoric and symbolism. Similarly, in the poem, We Wear the Mask, a poem written in Standard English, Dunbar uses imagery, word choice, and assonance to convey the reality of how African Americans are forced to act in order to survive in a white society. However, it is likely that Dunbar is also making literary reference to some of his dialectical poems, and the true meaning that they have. These two works, written about a century apart, express similar emotions toward the plight of African Americans in white society, a society where they are forced to fake their

Doorlag true identities and emotions in order to survive the social repercussions of demanding humanization and equal standing with white Americans.

Perhaps the most obvious of the literary devices which Dunbar uses to express this theme is imagery. This image of a mask is brought to the forefront of the poem not only through his references to the word mask, but also through his description of the actions of humans. For example, We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, (lines 1-2). This line serves as a physical manifestation of the idea presented throughout the poem that African Americans hide their true emotions from society, giving the reader clarity to the extremity of this social dilemma. Complementing the image which Dunbar portrays is his use of vivid word choice. Throughout the poem he uses words which actually describe ways through which humans normally express emotion, creating a sense of irony, because in general, the poem is speaking to the lack of true human emotion being expressed. Words such as grins, smile, mouth, tears, sighs, cries, and sing, are prevalent in the poem, strengthening an image which appears in the readers mind, perhaps similar to that of a clown, or the mask that a performer would wear. And perhaps that is the true reason behind the choice of these specific words. Any good actor would be able to portray these human emotions as if they were genuine to the actors feelings. However, as in the actors case, they are not genuine, and instead are expressed merely to convince an audience, whether the audience is the audience of a play, the people surrounding you in life, the white Americans looking through racist eyes at African Americans, or perhaps in Dunbars case, literary critics.

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Dunbar continues to strengthen this theme of human deceit through his use of assonance in the poem. Almost all of the lines in the poem end with the long i sound, which places huge importance on the few lines which dont end with this sound. These lines happen to contain the same words, we wear the mask, (lines 9, 15) although the punctuation is different in each line. In this first use of this phrase, the line ends with a period, making it seem as more of a statement or fact. This is simply the way it is; humans lie about their true feelings on a regular basis and have no choice in the matter. This stands in contrast to the second time the phrase is used, where it ends with an exclamation mark. In this instance, the exclamation mark turns the phrase into a kind of declaration of obstinance, advocating for African Americans to keep this mask of deceit in place, in order to survive in this society. A different viewpoint on the meaning of this poem draws from Dunbars personal history, supporting the idea that he is using this poem as a means to address his literary critics. As noted by Darwin Turner in The Journal of Negro History, Most recently, however, his [Dunbars] image has been defaced by scholars who have censured him for tarnishing the symbol by perpetuating the derogatory caricatures of the minstrel show and the plantation tales, (1). Turner speaks to the criticism of scholars who see the playful dialect in some of Dunbars poems as being disrespectful to his ancestors plight, and painfully aloof from its reality. However, from a reading of the poem, We Wear the Mask, it is easy to see how Dunbar could be addressing these critics with this subtle message: that African Americans are not even able to talk about their painful history in a straightforward manner in this society, but instead have to disguise the truth through playful dialogue. Underneath the dialect and funny stories lies the bitter reality to their former and continued plight in American society.

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However, from an overview of Dunbars biography by A. Robert Lee (166), it is clear that not even he himself realized just how much African Americans had been oppressed by white Americans. Because he grew up in Dayton, Ohio in the time period after the Civil War, Dunbar could not write from personal experience about the lives of slaves, but rather relied on the tales which his mother had passed down to him. This is not to say that Dunbar agreed with the concept of slavery, but rather that he was not impacted by slavery directly, only by its social aftermath. As Lee explains, Paul Dunbar was, paradoxically, the victimized beneficiary of 19th century racial cultural taste. To gain a readership of any dimension in the 80s and 90s was, for a black American author of whatever talent, to write to a sense of white expectations. (166). As Dunbars writing matures and he gains more popularity as an author, the views he expresses toward society as a whole and its treatment of African Americans in both the North and South contain more bitterness and pessimism. Many of Dunbars later fictional works are centered on themes of social injustice for African Americans. Although Dunbar lived in the North, he not only recognized the unequal treatment of more educated African Americans in his own society, including himself, but also was able to write about the inequality in the South, particularly focusing on lynchings and educational/vocational opportunities. By the end of his career, Dunbar continually proved his dedication to the African American population by sacrificing the popularity and monetary compensation that came with his dialect poetry for unrecognized masterpieces of irony themed on social justice.

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In deciphering the meaning within the poem, We Wear the Mask, it has become clear that there are multiple layers. From a review of Dunbars biography, it seems likely that he intended the poem as a response to his literary critics. However, Dunbar had a limited understanding of the reasoning behind their criticism. As Turner notes, readers have demanded too much of Dunbar as a symbol. Commanding him to speak for the Negro, they forget that Negros speak with hundreds of different voices, (12-13). Whereas these critics may have judged Dunbars earlier works too harshly without considering the personal experiences from which they originated, Dunbar also failed to recognize the limitations of his own viewpoint. While We Wear the Mask, strongly advocates for justice for the African American, Dunbars earlier dialect poetry failed to accurately define the oppression of African Americans, even allowing for the irony of tone encompassed by the dialect. However, this merely expresses the viewpoint which Dunbar held about how African Americans could best survive in a white society. As Lee explains, Dunbarpersistedin working the muted subterfuge of a writer who believed that gradualism not nationalism, the appeal to educated white feelings rather than revolution, was the likeliest path to Afro-American liberation(166). In other words, as the title of his poem suggests, Dunbar is urging African Americans to wear the mask which white society wants to see, and to win their liberty through appealing to the rational thought of white society, not through a violent revolution. This stands in contrast to the viewpoint of Ralph Ellison, who seems to advocate through his short story, Battle Royal, that African Americans need to take off the mask which they have been forced to wear by white society, and rebel. As noted by Joel Dinerstein,

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What was under attack was the lived embodiment of deference marked by the mask in the public sphereas a convention of American theater and music, as a set of physical disciplines, as a marker read by whites of African American acceptance of national racial ideology (83). Dinerstein expounds on the idea of a mask, claiming that this idea was spread through the idea of the literary figure, Uncle Tom. Dinerstein claims that the death of the grandpa at the beginning of Battle Royal, is actually the death of the literary figure Uncle Tom and what he stands for, masked deference to white society. As he summarizes, In the African American vernacular, Uncle Tom registered a survival practice of everyday life that required figurative literary murder in order to liberate both African American male artistic agency and the right to individualized social protest[Ellison slays] the mask yet manage[s] to honor the survival strategies of Southern African American men (83). So while Dunbar advocates the continued wearing of this social mask by African Americans, Ellison urges them to take off the mask and claim their own identity, each author trying to help their people to survive the best they can according to the societies of their times. Ellison brings this societal problem to attention through the life story of a young educated African American man. He introduces this theme of a mask which African Americans are forced to wear in a white society through the grandfather of the protagonist. As the grandfather lies dying in bed, some of his last words to his family are, I want you to overcome em with yeses, undermine em with grins, agree em to death and destruction, let em swoller you till they

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vomit or bust wide open. (244). This has a resounding similarity to the language of Dunbars We Wear the Mask. The symbol of Uncle Tom presented in Ellisons Battle Royal expresses agreement with Dunbars idea that the survival of African Americans in the South depended on giving white society the illusion that they were happy and content with the way things were and their place in society, while underneath this mask, they were secretly rebelling against this kind of society. A. Robert Lee notes these circumstances in his article, Sight and Mask: Ralph Ellisons Invisible Man, the book amounts to a fictive rendering of a man (here Negro) driven back, ruthlessly and relentlessly both onto and into himself, systematically and grotesquely castrated, worked upon, rendered impotent and anonymous, forced to assume a whole range of masks and anti-masks (some of his own devising, some created for him by society). It portrays a man seeking light, vision, understandingof himself and at the same time of the society which obliges him to conform to a complicated series of stereotypes, a man whose experience of the world (here white) both de-vitalize him and make him a lonely, almost absurd fugitive in his own time. (22). This review of Battle Royal could apply not only to Ellisons story, but also to Dunbars poem. They both express the sentiment of how the African Americans are forced to assume a whole range of masks, and conform tostereotypes, making them fugitives in their own homes. They are fugitives in the sense that not only do they run from the criticism of white Americans, but they face a very real threat from white society if they try to change the way in which society works and become truly equal to their white counterparts.

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This threat is also expressed in Ellisons Battle Royal, when the protagonist is invited to give a speech of gratitude to an assembly of rich white men at a hotel. He is invited to do this because of a previous speech which he had given at his graduation about humility leading to progress. As he says, When I was praised for my conduct I felt a guilt that in some way I was doing something that was really against the wishes of the white folks, that I should have been sulky and mean, and that that really would have been what they wanted, even though they were fooled and thought they wanted me to act as I did. (244). So the protagonist puts on a cheerful mask, trying to stay on the good side of white society, until he is forced to give a speech of gratitude to these rich white men after being abused by them. During this speech, even though he is still outwardly trying to maintain the appearance of submission to his role in society as defined by white Americans, his inward defiance fights through his mask to the point where he subconsciously changes the word responsibility, to equality, in the phrase, social responsibility. Immediately, the white men turn on him, ready to punish him for any idea of equality between white and black in society, until they are satisfied that it was a mistake and not what he meant to say. From their reaction, we are able to also see the mask that the white men wear, when the superintendent says, We mean to do right by you, but youve got to know your place at all times. (252). This false idea of doing right, held by the white men proves that they are also wearing a mask of generosity and patronage to the African Americans. This mask only veils their true hatred for the black population and their desire to control them tyrannically, even though the African Americans are now in theory free.

Doorlag In conclusion, through comparing the ideas expressed through the literary devices of

imagery, assonance, and word choice utilized throughout We Wear the Mask, and the ideas expounded through rhetoric and symbolism in Ellisons Battle Royal, it is clear that the authors are proposing similar ideas through different historical contexts. Through We Wear the Mask, Dunbar urges African Americans to continue to hide their true emotions in order to protect themselves from white society, and highlights the inhibitions which African Americans face in becoming an equal part of society, while Ellison encourages African Americans to remove the mask, demand their equal place in society, and discover their individual identities. Although different in the methods which they believe will work, both Dunbar and Ellison seek to improve African Americans place in U.S. society, whether that means wearing a mask, or taking it off.

Doorlag Works Cited Dinerstein, Joel. Uncle Tom is Dead!: Wright, Himes, and Ellison Lay a Mask to Rest. African American Review. 43.1 (2009): 83. Web. 12 December, 2012.

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Dunbar, Paul Laurence. We Wear the Mask. The Collected Poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar. Joanne M. Braxton, ed. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993. 71. Print. Ellison, Ralph. Battle Royal. The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. New York: Bedford, 2009. 243-253. Print. Lee, A. Robert. Sight and Mask: Ralph Ellisons Invisible Man. Negro American Literature Forum. 4.1 (1970): 22-23. Web. 7 December, 2012. Lee, A. Robert. The Fiction of Paul Laurence Dunbar. Negro American Literature Forum. 8.1 (1974): 166-175. Web. 13 December, 2012. Turner, Darwin. Paul Laurence Dunbar: The Rejected Symbol. The Journal of Negro History. 52.1 (1967): 1-13. Web. 12 October, 2012.