Download Paul Laurence Dunbar

Paul Laurence Dunbar
By: Janine Thomsen
Biography
• Born in Dayton Ohio on June 27, 1872.
• Died at the age of 33.
• He wrote a large body of dialect poems,
standard English poems, essays, novels
and short stories before he died.
• His mother was a former slave and his
father had escaped from slavery and
served in the 55th Massachusetts Infantry
Regiment
We Wear The Mask
We wear the mask that grins and lies.
It Hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile;
And mouth with myriad.
Why should the world be overwise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We near the mask.
We Wear The Mask (cont.)
We smile, but, o great Christ, our cries
To Thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but, oh, the day is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask
What the poem means
• This poem is saying that even though we smile
on the outside there could be something so
wrong on the inside. We hide behind our so
called “masks” so other people can’t see who we
really are because we are afraid of what other
people think. We are so concentrated on the
social norms that we feel the need to cover up
who we really are.
Faces
By: Scary Kids Scaring Kids
Would you agree that we're far
from all right?
We fall below the line!
We fall below the standards!
If only you could see
What we see through these eyes
(This flag is burning, it will sink
under your skin!)
I won't believe the horror that I see
It's more than your poison inside
me
Lets tear away these faces we
hide behind
Cutting through the airwaves
Open up our minds
Show ourselves to the world
tonight
Cause we are.. No longer in
disguise!
Well, I’m aware of your lies, how
do you sleep at night?
It's all a matter of time, I think their
catching on
You dream of wars, that I refuse to
fight
While people disappear, another
broken heart
I won't believe the horror that I see
It's more than your poison inside
me
I won't let go, while the plague is
spreading
I won't let go
Well, I’m aware of your lies, how
do you sleep at night?
It's all a matter of time, I think their
catching on
You dream of wars, that I refuse to
fight
While people disappear, another
broken heart
I won't believe the horror that I see
It's more than your poison inside
me
I won't let go, while the plague is
spreading
I won't let go
•
Let's tear away these faces we
hide behind
Cutting through the airwaves
Open up our minds
Show ourselves to the world
tonight
Cause we are… No longer in
disguise!
We can save ourselves
(Rise Up!)
You can't stop us
We can save our soul
(Rise Up!)
We don’t need your help
We can save ourselves
(Rise Up!)
You can’t stop us
•
Let's tear away these faces we
hide behind
Cutting through the airwaves
Open up our minds
Show ourselves to the world
tonight
Cause we are… No longer in
disguise!
Tear away these faces
Tear away these faces
Tear away these faces
We're no longer in disguise!
How this song relates to the poem:
• This song relates to the poem because is
talks about how we hide behind “masks”
because we fall below the standards. Also,
it says how they refuse to do things that
people want them to do that they don’t
want to do.