We wear the mask that grins and lies, / It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, – / This debt we pay to human guile
-- Speakers (Lines 1 – 3)

Importance: These lines that open “We Wear the Mask” immediately introduce the central concern of the poem: the mask the poem’s speakers are forced to wear to “[hide] our cheeks and [shade] our eyes,” a refrain that reemerges with the phrase “We wear the mask” in every stanza of the poem” (1, 9, 15). The poem also considers how much choice the speakers, whom one can argue represent some aspect of the African American experience in response to systemic racism, have in donning their mask when it is the result of an externally imposed “debt,” supported by discriminatory systems of economics and laws.

Why should the world be over-wise, / In counting all our tears and sights?
-- Speakers (Lines 6 – 7)

Importance: These lines, which open the second stanza, mark a shift in the speakers’ tone...