At the beginning of the poem the author is offering the reader justification of personal feelings. It's easy to relate to any pain that causes the author to "wear the mask" that hides our eyes (line 2) form an inner sadness. It is human nature not to want to share our intimate feelings with the world and not allow them to be "over-wise" (line 6) of our personal problems. So, we put on a smile to these feelings (line 10) and only Christ in heaven-above knows the torture of our souls (line 11). Even though the pain is long (line14). At one time or another for whatever reason we all have worn "the Mask." Therefore the reader feels he/she understands the poem.

If the reader happens to know (and realize) that Dunbar was a black poet, true understanding of the literary text may begin to appear. However, a single misdeed or problems may still be considered the devil's advocate here because Dunbar never admits to his cultural context. The reader is left to guess the origins of the tortured souls (line 11) and still does not truly know the reason for the author's mask. The reader might yet ask, "But what happened...?" "What injustice is being referred to?"

Paul Lawrence Dunbar (1872-1906) was a black, American poet. Although he was born "free" in Dayton, Ohio Dunbar was the son of a former slave. He probably heard many stories of the cruelties and injustices suffered by these people; he very likely suffered prejudicial and racial sadness of his own. With this cultural context as knowledge it is easy to decipher that Dunbar indeed writes about the qualities of black life. Contrary to some of his other skillful sentiments, this poem was not written in black dialect and offered it another disguise. Many readers in my group had no idea the poem was about black

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 749
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)