Article archive Dama Ninao N°17 #17

People write, read and study poetry for various reasons. Beyond aesthetics, poetry explores human experiences and alleviates societal suffering. Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” (1895) depicts the horrible and difficult experience of being a member of an oppressed group. From the lenses of postcolonial theory, this paper analyses the symbolism used by the poet to portray and denounce the conscious and/or unconscious effort of the oppressed to behave in a hypocritical way in order to be accepted by others. The paper calls for the decolonization of the minds of the oppressed in order to be true to themselves and avoid wearing “masks”