"We Wear the Mask"

Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poetry appears to explore the topic of slavery primarily, including poems written in slave dialect and poems about famous abolitionists Harriet Beecher Stowe and Frederick Douglass.  Due to this common theme, “We Wear the Mask” is likely a poem about the mentality of slaves.  However, “We Wear the Mask” could also apply to humans in general. 

Images such as smiling through “torn and bleeding hearts” and “tortured souls” could apply to slaves putting on a face for their masters; they are “wear[ing] [a] mask” (ln 4, 11).  However, it could also apply more generally to any person suffering from inner or external turmoil that wants to hide his/her pain from others by “wear[ing] [a] mask.”  The second stanza really captures this idea:

            Why should the world be overwise,

            In counting all our tears and sighs?

            Nay, let them only see us, while

                        We wear the mask.  (ln 6-9)

In other words, the speaker poses a rhetorical question, asking why the world should know of every problem of an individual person, and concludes that the world should see the face someone puts on.  The use of the plural “our” and “us” suggests that Dunbar is referring to a group’s shared pain, such as that of an enslaved people; if he were speaking more to an individual wanting to hide his/her pain, he could use the first person pronouns.  However, the idea holds true for an individual.  Plus, the plural could speak not just to a shared pain common to a group but to pain, which is common to all humankind.  I really enjoyed this poem because it did speak to something that is very true in human nature; we have tendencies to hide our problems from the world and “wear [a] mask.”

Chesnutt's Parallel Constructions

Both “The Goophered Grapevine” and “Dave’s Neckliss” are similar stories.  As I read “Dave’s Neckliss,” I kept noticing names of characters and locations being repeated: Annie, Uncle Julius, Mars Dugal, Rockfish, Mars’ Dugal’s second plantation on Beaver Crick, and Wimbletom/Wim’l’ton Road.  This makes sense as the stories belong to a collection or series as Dr. Campbell explained in class.  However, I could not help but notice similarities in structure as well. 

In both, Uncle Julius tells a story from his slave past in an attempt to get what he wants.  In “The Goophered Grapevine,” he wants to keep the narrator and his wife from buying the ruined plantation, so he tells a story to try and convince him that the place is cursed.  In “Dave’s Neckliss,” he wants the ham, so he tells a story to make John and Annie not want the ham any longer.  Are the tales he tells real or made-up?  Is he able to relate a real experience that fits to his purposes or does he create one to get what he wants?  The “goophered” story seems made up to me because while the slaves may have believed in the “goophered” grapes and attributed deaths to something that doesn’t exist, there is no such explanation for the fact that Henry got young and grew hair and then got old and bald in a seasonal cycle.  The story of Dave seems a bit more believable, which is perhaps why it seems more appalling.  However, that story could also be made-up as the tear while eating his sixth slice of ham seems a bit staged. 

It is interesting that the “goophered” story does not succeed – while Dave’s story does – in bringing about what Julius wants.  Partly, this could be due to the fact that Dave’s story is more appalling – and seems more likely to be true.  However, I also think that it has to do with which of Julius’ listeners is responsible for the action.  In both cases, Annie seems more affected by the stories and more likely to believe them to be true.  When she asks him if the “goophered” story is true, she does so “doubtfully, but seriously” (696).  This suggests that at least a small part of her believes the story – or, at least, the tragedy tugs at her emotions.  Similarly, in “Dave’s Neckliss,” she gives Julius the ham because she “couldn’t have eaten any more of” it (508).  This implies that after hearing the story of Dave, she was bothered enough that she couldn’t eat more ham.  On the other hand, her husband does not appear as bothered in either story.  He purchases the plantation regardless of the story and he wants ham after Julius’ story.  Thus, the success of Julius’ story in the “Dave’s Neckliss” seems to rely on the fact that Annie was the one in the position to give him what he hoped to gain by it, whereas in “The Goophered Grapevine,” he was relying on John to do as he wanted. 

The fact that Annie seems more affected by these stories also raises the question of whether Chesnutt was making a point about women being more susceptible than men to these sorts of ploys.  It’s hard to tell if he was trying to denote a gender difference in general or if these are just characteristics of two particular characters that happen to be of different genders as they are the same characters.  If they had been different characters in each story, the conclusion of a statement regarding gender would be easier to come by.

The Power of Women

I could not help but notice the portrayal of powerful women in Mary E. Wilkins Freeman’s stories.  Given that the women of the late nineteenth century did not have a lot of power, it seemed odd that the women in her stories had power over men.

In “The Revolt of ‘Mother,’” Sarah questions her husband building another barn where he had

promised her a house, but he does not answer her.  She is upset and has enough sway over him to make him come in and listen to her, but she does not get an explanation or change his mind.  Up until this point, Sarah appears to be a typical woman of that time.  However, when her husband leaves town, Sarah decides to move into the new barn.  She tells her husband that this is the way it is going to be, and he does not argue.  The ending demonstrates the power Sarah truly has.  She was determined to have a house, so she made the barn into a house; her husband did not fight her on it, but rather wept, not realizing she was so determined to have a house.  The title also suggests that the “mother” was going to have some power, but the fact that her revolt against her husband’s authority was successful given that he acquiesced to her demands shows just how much power Sarah truly had.

Similarly, in “Old Woman Magoun”, the title character got the men to build the bridge she wanted.  Freeman writes that “the weakness of the masculine element in Barry’s Ford was laid low before such strenuous feminine assertion” (361).  Freeeman comes right out and makes Old Woman Magoun a powerful force to be reckoned with.  Unlike in “The Revolt of ‘Mother,’” where Sarah gradually demonstrates her power, Old Woman Magoun is described as powerful from the start.  Also, while Sarah only had power over her husband, Old Woman Magoun wields power over the men in her town.  When Old Woman Magoun claimed that her daughter had been married and had not had a child out of wedlock, “no one had dared openly gainsay the old woman” (362).  No one dared to cross her; she certainly was not a powerless woman.

Even in “A New England Nun,” the female character has some power.  While Louisa participated in very ladylike activities – practically leading a girl’s life – she had power.  She wanted out of her engagement so she could keep on living her way, while Joe had fallen for another woman.  However, neither was willing to back out as they had given their word and didn’t want to hurt the other.  Yet, when Louisa realized that Joe also wanted to break their engagement, she was in the position to break it off as she knew that they both wanted out.  Thus, she had the power over him: either to free him of his obligations or to hold him to his word.  She chooses to break off the engagement, using her power in an unconventional way to keep living the girlish life that she so enjoyed.