Question

Paul Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” and “Sympathy” are poems that resound with suffering. What causes the pain of the people who wear the mask and the repeated injuries of the caged bird? Why do the people and the bird not change their situations? To whom do the sufferers appeal in their pain, and why? Use the poems to support your response. Please help

Answer 1

It is the oppression that they felt from being slaves or being Black.  Many of them hide their feelings of hate and anger behind fake smiles or “mask” from their tormentors.  Even after the Civil War, they still had to go through more trials as they were not treated equally as Whites.  In Sympathy, the caged bird’s injuries are caused by beating his wings on the cage where he tries to be free.  Both poems appeal to the public to see the injustice being done and begs them to do something about it.