We Wear the Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar

What is a mask?

What is the mask about which the poet is speaking?

What is your interpretation of the last two lines of the third stanza?

"But let the world dream otherwise

We wear the mask!"

What information can you can gather to support your idea about speaker of the poem?

What do you notice about what this particular mask is used to hide?

Explain the metaphor of the mask. Why is the mask a metaphor?

What is the rhyme scheme of "We wear the Mask"?

For what is the "clay" a metaphor?

Cite an example of alliteration in "We wear the Mask".

Match the following

• sly or cunning intelligence

• myriad

• extremely unpleasant

• vile

• a great number, countless

• guile

• understated, nuanced difficult to notice

• arise

• to come into being, to begin to exist

• subtleties