Who wears the mask? “We,” in the poem, are a group that is hidden. On the outside, “we” grin, smile, and “mouth” what the world expects of us. The alternative is to have the world “count” all “our” grievances. The implication is that the world will be mighty unsympathetic, and any expression of pathos is going to be taken as a sign of weakness. The poem is forged in very specific historical experience. It lives on because it describes a situation that still echoes through African-American experience, and tragically, repeats itself for other groups of people in other places and eras. Born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,–a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. (Quoted) Dunbar was a great tragic writer .
Posted on: Thu, 04 Jul 2013 22:14:20 +0000
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