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"We Wear the Mask," by Paul Laurence Dunbar and "Richard Cory" by an anonymous writer are two poems that illustrate how people hide their feelings from others. They have different voices, or are coming from different views, but they have the same theme. We can not see how people are feeling by their actions or facial expressions. What they feel inside is different than what we perceive.
In the poem "We Wear the Mask," Dunbar portrays his view of true feelings. "We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes" (1-2). "With torn and bleeding hearts we smile" (4). He feels that our face is a mask that does not show how people really feel. We smile to hide the pain in our hearts. In the lines "Why should the world be over-wise, In counting all our tears and signs?" (6-7) Dunber is telling us not to show feelings. Why bother others with our troubles? We sing, laugh, and smile even though we are hurting and "let the world dream otherwise" (14) to hide our suffering.
"Richard Cory" is about a man that everyone in town admires. "When ever Richard Cory went down town, We people on the pavement looked at him: He was a gentlemen from sole to crown" (1-3). He stood out in a crowd because of his polished fashion. "And he was always quietly arrayed, and he was always human when he talked" (5-6). He was rich and had advantages over others, but he did not conduct himself in a "holier-than-thou" manner. "In fine, we thought that he was everything to make us wish that we were in his place." Everyone not only liked him, but wanted to be him. He was a role model for some, but unbeknownst to all, he had faults or problems just as them. These problems were not discussed in the poem. It doesn't say anything about a marital spouse. Maybe ...
Death is a common theme in many poems. It is viewed so differently to everyone. In the poems, "Because I could not stop for Death," "First Death in Nova Scotia," and "War is kind" death is presented by each narrator as something different. To one it is a kind gentle stranger while to another it is a cold cruel being. A kind gentleman stranger...
In the poem 'Home Burial', Robert Frost talks about a couple in the verge of breaking up. I believe that the main issue in this poem is the death of a child that has not been addressed by the parents. A staircase, where the action of the poem occurs, symbolizes both the ability of husband and wife to come together and the distance between them. I...
Asunci?n Richardson Prof. Beckham ENG102-C06 February 11,2020 My Father As a Guitar : by Martin Espada Martin Espada is a famous poet who has written My Father as a Guitar. Looking at this poem we see this father who want to get better but he still has life going on and it want just stop because he gets sick. This poem is about life hitting you a...
When you go to bed you see that it is dark outside, but when you wake you see light. The light and dark of the day is very dissent, but they are very closely related. Dark and light are the fares things from each other, while you can't have light without dark meeting. In the "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and "Sailing to Byzantium" we see these difference...
E. E. Cummings, who was born in 1894 and died in 1962, wrote many poems with unconventional punctuation and capitalization, and unusual line, word, and even letter placements. Cummings' most difficult form of prose is probably the ideogram; it is extremely short and it combines both visual and aural elements. There may be sounds or characters on t...
