In Depth Thinking With "We Wear the Mask"

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!

 "We Wear the Mask" -Paul Laurence Dunbar

I think that Dunbar wrote this poem to express how a person would hide behind a facade to hide what he/she was going through.   "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. " - This excerpt means that we lie to people with an act that everything is okay and pay for it by suffering in silence.  "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!"  In this excerpt, the author is trying to ask why the world should care about what we are going through if we don't care enough to tell.  Even though we could be suffering, no one would know because we choose how to represent ourselves to others.       

Dunbar uses rhyme, repetition, hyperbole, metaphors and personification in this poem. The personification used is in blue, hyperbole is in pink, metaphor is in red, repetition is in orange, and rhyme in green.  I think Dunbar used these devices to make a reference to how people act in real life.  

I think that the author was successful in conveying that we hide what we are going through because after reading this poem, I felt moved by his words and the truth behind them.  Overall, I felt that the poem was very deep and that it became one of my favorites.