Poetry Analysis

MACROBUTTON DoFieldClick [Student 's Name]

MACROBUTTON DoFieldClick [Instructor 's Name]

MACROBUTTON DoFieldClick [Course Title]

DATE \ "d MMMM yyyy " 9 April 2009

Behind the Face of the Enemy

The struggle to be a decent human being takes place internally and externally , and though the human need to be a part of a community demands we live among others , individually , people remain isolated within themselves . Most people are aware of the different personas within themselves : the child the adult the student the employee the big sister the friend . Each of these

roles reflects the individual but they serve different purposes and have grown out of the individual 's need to show only parts of himself to the outside world . Propriety demands we behave in particular ways under particular circumstances - often hiding what we really feel . For example , it 's fine to cry at a funeral , but it 's frowned upon if one cries in the workplace over a failed task , and so , we often hide our genuine selves behind the appropriate persona - we wear masks . The practice of revealing only our best to the world is explored by Paul Laurence Dunbar in his poem We Wear the Mask ' In the piece , Dunbar makes a case for people to make their lives easier by hiding their suffering his rationale is that those who are responsible for the pain they 've caused do not care they have caused it , and that individual solace can be found only among those who suffer similarly

The...