We Wear the Mask

Throughout the poem, the body is described as separate from the mask, as if they are unconnected pieces joined together through blood and tears. The dismemberment motif symbolizes the many identities the speakers carry. The body is consistently described through suffering or violence with “bleeding hearts” and “tears and sighs,” while the mask maintains its double-crossing smile on the surface. The speakers’ feet seem bare, as if they have no protection against the bespattered terrain. In fact, moments where the body physically appears in the poem reveal the most about the speaker’s true identity.

At the forefront of the body motif in the poem is the fact that African Americans bore the weight of a racist world physically and emotionally, through displaced and stolen bodies, deemed assets while simultaneously devalued as human beings.

Interestingly, “the world” is referred to as a single entity, its own body, even though under its umbrella, sits a wide range of possibilities, or many different bodies. Most readers would like to relate to the speaker, and would not like to relate to the world, as described in the poem, making this poem uniquely popular among white audiences, who unbeknownst to them, belonged to the so called “world.”

The biblical motif in the poem exemplifies the unrelenting faith of the speakers, despite and because of their suffering. The speakers cry out “O great Christ” (Line 10), in reference to Jesus Christ and the New Testament, behind their smiling facades. Images of vile “clay” (Line 12) and “the world” (Line 6) invoke the Book of Genesis, and humanity as a whole. To face evil and survive provides a source of power that requires faith to be recognized, and only those who walk the path can see it. In addition, “long the mile” (Line 13) can also call up the Israelites’ enslavement and exodus in the Old Testament, adding to the overwhelming sense of fate and despair in the poem.