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THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MASK TOWARD
THE IDEA OF HUMAN’S EXISTENCE
AS SEEN IN DUNBAR’S “WE WEAR THE MASK”
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
in English Letters
By
JIMMY FREDRIKUS ELO
Student Number: 014214131
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
YOGYAKARTA 2007
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Guta cavat lapidem
non vii sed saepe cadendo
(Latin Adagium)
And in the end,
All we take is equal with all we give
(The Beattles)v
This undergraduate thesis is dedicated to
My parents PapaLongginus Mon and MamaY. Maria Fita
My angels Inchik and Leony
My brothers Ito and Nei
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Firstly, all gratitude and gratefulness is only for God The Almighty, The Holy Trinity; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father is the only one Creator, all existences belong to Him. The Son is my Savior and my Shepherd; if only the words can represent my thankfulness. And the Holy Spirit is my power to do more than I can; He raise me up when I am down, He is sent to lift my liveliness, I am very thankful for the enlightenment.
Secondly, I would like to thank my father and mother, the person who always have the best place in my heart. Papa Longginus Mon is my best teacher. In his silence he speaks so much for me, the teaching how to live in action not just in words. Mama Yustina Maria Fita, I am your craziest son in the family. Whatever I do it always bothers you. I always wonder how to make those things going right. Ende- Ema, I am very grateful being given the chance so far.
Thirdly, my big appreciation is dedicated to two ‘silly creatures’; Kristo Andang Jaya and Antonius Karunia M.S. They are my brothers who always be there when I need. They deserve my best regard.
Fourthly, my special gratitude belongs to two angels in my life, Maria Wahyuningsih and Leony Maria Monello. They are my soul mates. Inchik and Leony, I have each beautiful picture for you both and I keep in a place where only us can find it. Weta, I am very delightful for the support and inspiration. I‘ll never leave it behind.
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Fifthly, I also thank my advisor, Mr. Drs. Hirmawan Wijanarka, M.Hum. the person who has given the best considerations for this thesis. Mrs. Dewi Widyastuti, S. Pd., M. Hum., my co-advisor, is the person who has a big role in finishing this thesis. Only God can reward for the encouragement and countless support.
Sixthly, my deepest gratefulness is given to Father Hary Susanto, SJ who is my counselor through some criticism and encouragement in doing this tiring and demanding object.
And finally, I give my best thank to all my friends who are my companions. Big family of Arimbi, Mbetuk and Echa, Amang Beben (I am still waiting for inang), Ronny and Reynold Kabut, Induk, Lale, Khilus and Entok, Aldo and Felly Heno, and also Amang Gode Bombang. Sefri, amang Njalek (thanks for jarangnya), Mandik, Adi, Safe. Big family of Society, Onchik and Handry, Anye and Ipank, Edja, Nenik ‘Donkeng’, Kae Frans cs. My big appreciation is also for the big family of Petung, Kae Vickus, Ichen, Sensi and Vivi, Njeik and Ngawis, all the times we spend were very precious my friends. Bapa Herry Bardata and Mama Ulin, my best respect is only for your advice and courage. My best regard is for my friends of 2001, especially Bertus, where are you bro? Thank you guys, may we never forget all days in past to picture our way at last.
Jimmy Fredrikus Elo
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ...1
A. Background of the Study ... 1
B. Problem Formulation ... 6
C. Objectives of the Study ... 6
D. Definition of Existence ... 7
CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL REVIEW ... 8
A. Review of Related Studies ... 8
B. Review of Related Theories ... 11
1. Theory on Understanding Poem ... 11
2. Mask... 13
3. Human Existence ... 15
C. Theoretical Framework ... 21
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY ... 23
2. The Interpretation of the Poem Related to the Idea of Human Being (Existence) ... 28
B. The Significance of the Mask Toward Human Existence in the Poem ... 32
C. The Values of the Idea of Human Existence in the Poem ... 47
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION ... 51
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APPENDIX: “We Wear the Mask” ... 56
ABSTRACT
JIMMY FREDRIKUS ELO (2007). The Significance of Mask toward the Idea of Human’s Existence as Seen in Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask”.
Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University.
“We Wear the Mask” is one of Paul Lawrence Dunbar’s poems that was written in 1896. The poem introduces the speaker who wears the mask. In the poem we can find out that the speaker is wearing the mask that grins and lies. Those characteristics can conceal the genuine existence of human being. The speakers also questions the involvement of the society which he says being over-wise toward his problem. The speaker is also suffering and crying to God but he does not know when it ends. He only has a hope, the society dream their free existence.
There are three problems that the writer wants to discuss in the poem. The first problem questions how far the idea of human existence described in the poem. The second problem questions the significance of the mask toward the human’s existence. And finally the third problem tries to figure out how the ideas of human’s existence are conveyed in the poem.
The approach used is moral-philosophical approach which particularly focuses on the existentialism point of view. Existentialism is a fully responsible philosophy whose prime intention to bring back the freedom to human individual if only man has the courage to pay the price for it, to determine the value of his own life. The writer thinks that human’s existence is an integral part of a human. Therefore man should be responsible for it. The responsibility appears through his/her choices to be free and out of any interest upon him/her. The writer also uses some theories such as theory on understanding poem, theory of symbol and theory of human’s existence.
In the analysis the writer figures out that the idea of human existence is described vividly through the mask. The mask signifies the inability of human being in dealing with a certain situation. In the poem we know how the choice to wear the mask leads the speaker in the poem to the inauthenticity of their existence. Wearing the mask means the speaker leaves his genuine self (identity) behind and put on other one before the society.
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ABSTRAK
JIMMY FREDRIKUS ELO (2007). The Significance of Mask toward the Idea of Human’s Existence as Seen in Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask”.
Yogyakarta: Jurusan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma. “We Wear the Mask” adalah salah satu puisi Paul Lawrence Dunbar yang ditulis pada tahun 1896. Puisi ini memperkenalkan orang yang berbicara dalam puisi yang mengenakan topeng. Dalam puisi kita bisa menemukan dia mengenakan topeng yang menyeringai dan berbohong. Ciri-ciri topeng tersebut bisa menyembunyikan eksistensi manusia yang sesungguhnya. Orang yang berbicara dalam puisi juga mempertanyakan keterlibatan masyarakatnya yang dia katakan ‘kelebihan bijak’ dalam berhadapan dengan masalah yang dialaminya. Dia juga mengalami penderitaan dan menangis kepada Tuhan tetapi tidak tahu kapan itu akan berakhir. Satu saja harapannyabahwa masyarakatnya bisa memimpikan kebebasan dirinya/eksistensinya.
Ada tiga masalah yang penulis ingin bahas dalam puisi. Masalah yang pertama mempertanyakan sejauh mana ide eksistensi manusia dideskripsikan di dalam puisi. Sementara itu masalah kedua mempertanyakan signifikansi topeng terhadap eksistensi manusia. Dan masalah ketiga berusaha mengungkap sejauh mana ide tentang eksistensi manusia dibahas dalam puisi
Pendekatan yang digunakan adalah pendekatan filsafat moral yang secara khusus berfokus pada ide tentang eksistensialisme. Eksistensialisme adalah sebuah filsafat yang bertanggung jawab penuh untuk mengembalikan kebebasan (kemerdekaan) kepada setiap manusia jika saja manusia berani untuk menetukan apa signifikansi hidup bagi dirinya sendiri. Penulis berpikir bahwa eksistensi manusia adalah bagian integral dari seorang manusia dan oleh karena itu manusia harus bertanggung jawab terhadapnya. Tanggung jawab itu terlihat pada pilihannya untuk bebas dan tidak terikat pada kepentingan lain. Penulis juga menggunakan beberapa teori seperti teori dalam memahami puisi, teori tentang symbol dan topeng, dan teori tentang eksistensi manusia.
Di dalam analisis kita bisa menemukan bagaimana keputusan untuk memakai topeng menghantar orang yang berbicara dalam puisi pada ketidaksejatian dirinya. Memakai topeng berarti dia meninggalkan dirinya (identitas) yang sejati dan mengenakan identitas yang lain dalam berhadapan dengan masyarakat.
A. Background of the Study
Man is the most complex individual found in the world. By his complexity, man is trusted to conquer the world; of course he must be responsible for whatever he has done, as the sign of his integrity as human life. But after conquering the world, man faces the most complicated thing, man has to face himself. Man is just like a mystery to recover. Karl Jaspers wrote, “man, in his empirical reality can be a subject of research in many directions, but man is always more than he knows or can he know about himself” (Jaspers, 1956: 151). Although man is a perfect creature among others, he still has many works to do about himself. Man then has to answer the question, what the worth of living as a man is.
The question above is just an example of many other questions that have to be figure out. The question who a man is relates to the existence of human. Existence of human is very important because existence is only for man; (although the word existence also has been used for larger scope, such as to show the presence of something) none can exist except man. Therefore man is also called as an existence (being). Man is called an existence because he is aware or conscious of his being. But actually, the meaning of existence is more than just being existed. Existence is derived from the Latin words eks and sistere. Eks means out, and sistere means to stand. So, eksistere means to stand outside, and in this point it means to get outside of
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himself. Getting outside of himself means man has to live with other men or other existences in the world. Man cannot live alone; he is ens sociale who interacts with other humans in the world. By getting outside of himself, a man can experience his real being, his origin being. In achieving his real being, a man sometimes faces some obstacles in which he cannot totally avoid. The obstacles may come from inside or outside him. The obstacles from inside can be caused by his limitation as a human being. And the obstacles from outside can be transformed into several things, and one example is slavery. Slavery can prevent man to gain his ideal being because of its characteristics that subordinates and marginalizes other people (Drijarkara, 1981: 61-62).
many times, the writer finally found this kind of problem, how the speaker in the poem tries to maintain his true existence; he decides to choose not to be authentic by wearing mask. This is also the standpoint of the writing; to build a bridge that relates philosophy and literature. Philosophy that will be talked about here is seen from existentialism point of view. Existentialism, according to Walter Kaufmann,” is not a philosophy but a label for several widely different revolts against traditional philosophy” (1966: 11) and Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy says existentialism is “philosophical and literary movement that focused on the uniqueness of each human individual” (Audi, 1999: 296), but according to Jaspers,”…genuine philosophizing must well up from a man’s individual existence and address itself to other individual to help them to achieve true existence” (Kaufmann, 1966: 23).
According to A. MacIntyre, there are some key themes in existentialism such as; the individual and the system, intentionality, being and absurdity, the nature and the significance of choice, the role of extreme experiences, and the nature of communication (1999: 147-149). The choice of Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask’ is caused by the appearance of some of these themes above. The theme such as the individual and the system, the nature and the significance of choice and the role of extreme experiences can be seen through the effort of the speaker in achieving their authentic existence.
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is facing the dilemma, being the person who was not free by the stigmatic identity being the slaves for many years (wear mask) but he was tortured by their feeling, or otherwise, being the person who built his own image in freedom or had the origin existence.
In the poem there is a group of people who wear the mask. The reason why they do it is to hide their identity. But we have to figure out the reason why they hide their face by wearing mask and the reason why they have to hide their selves / their existence. And if we read the poem closely and respond to it, we come to a question, what human existence really is.
himself (Abidin, 2000: 157). This kind of definition refers to the choice to be himself (being authentic) or not to be himself (not being authentic).
The relation between literature and philosophy is always an interesting topic to discuss. The philosopher like Heidegger also talks about literature, in this example he takes poetry as a genre in literature. He said,” poetry has the capacity of returning man to his most fundamental form of existence, a poem existence” (James,1973: 288) because poetry is man’s greatest achievement and the inner side of his nature. He once reacted to Hőlderlin (German famous romantic poetry) who stated that writing poetry is the most innocent of all occupations. He supported the statement saying that poetry is harmless and ineffectual because it remains merely saying and speaking. And, he continued, in taking poetry we also have to take its essence (James, 1973: 329). Poetry is the art of the poet. The art of the poet can be found through the messages he intends to speak.
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B. Problem Formulation
To analyze the idea of human existence, there are three questions that have to be answered in this writing:
1. How is the idea of human existence described in the poem?
2. What is the significance of mask toward the human’s existence as described in the poem?
3. What are the values of the ideas of human existence as described in the poem?
C. Objectives of the Study
The aim of the study is mainly to answer these problems above. It is also to know how far the implementation of the being can be understood in the poem from philosophical perspective. First of all, we have to figure out the description of human existence in the poem. It is described that the speaker is facing the dilemma in his life. The dilemma is about the fact that the speaker is wearing the mask. We know that by wearing mask, man is about to act something, or we can say that there is something lies behind the reality of wearing the mask.
means it is free, independence, origin, the authenticity of human existence and “the unmasked being”. While Being as Status means it is given, not origin, influenced by others, the inauthenticity of human existence or the “masked being”.
Finally, the third question aims to find out the values of the idea of human being (existence) in the poem. Related to the American community at that time, the third question criticizes the involvement of American community in the slavery era. American community was considered as those who legalized the slavery only for their interests and they considered black people as inhuman.
D. Definition of Existence
CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL REVIEW
A. Review of Related Studies
Plato and Aristotle stated thousand years ago that art is the imitation of reality. Dunbar proved it. He composed and created art through the poem “We Wear the Mask”. The poem is the composition that represents the reality or the condition in which he experienced, saw, heard intentionally or not. The poem “We Wear the Mask” is seen as the representation of reality of American in nineteenth century especially, in which slavery is legally accepted in the community of American people.
Paul Laurence Dunbar was a son of a slave who was born in 1872 in Dayton, Ohio. Toward the inequality of race, skin-color, and creed, or briefly the inequality between American and “color people” (a term that is introduced by Frederick Douglass, a great abolitionist, who tent to use color people instead of black), which is obviously seen in America during the nineteenth century, Sam S. Brackett and Theodore B. Strandness stated that, “the country tend to belong, in fact, to men who were not only white but also Christian and Protestant as well” whereas the Black had been slaved for more than a century and the Indian had been ruthlessly pushed aside, and even a good many white men were not so sure if the country were theirs if they were from immigrants and religious minorities (1962: 660).
One of Dunbar’s poems that spoke out the racial injustice felt by the black American is “We Wear the Mask”. According to Joanne M. Braxton in the book The Collected Poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar, “the ‘we’ of the poem is the black folk collective, the speaker a Dunbar persona, or perhaps the real Dunbar lifting … about the double nature of the black experience” ( www.english.uiuc.edu./maps.poets/a-f/dunbar/mask). Dunbar could not avoid the situation in which the black had been treated unfairly because of the anguish of slavery. Therefore, he spoke the voice of the hurt black experience. Braxton also states that the black experienced double nature meaning that they had to face their life in two stages; the existence of free human being and also the existence of ex-slaves.
On the other side, William Dean Howells remarked that Dunbar’s great accomplishment was “to have studied the American Black objectively and to have represented him as he found him” (Brackett and Strandness, 1962: 660). Howells continues that Dunbar is the first black ‘to express’ the life of Black aesthetically and … lyrically (Williams, 1994: 486).
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race, though obvious enough, not being openly stated (www.english.uiuc.edu./maps.poets/a-f/dunbar/mask). He said that the poem is an apologia for all that his own and succeeding generations would condemn in his work. In Revell’s opinion, the poem itself is already masked in the meaning that the ideas that are found in the poem are not directly understood as they are but there must be something that lies behind them.
Another comment comes from James Emmanuel. In Emmanuel’s point of view, as he described in Racial Fire in the Poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar, states a similar datum about the speaker in the poem, “it is spoken by black people and for black people” (www.english.uiuc.edu./maps.poets/a-f/dunbar/mask). Emmanuel said that the speaker is the black man due to the fact that the poet himself is an American black man. And the most important thing is that he is the supporter of the abolition of the slavery. Emmanuel’s statement is in accordance with Braxton’s comment. But he added the addressee of the poem namely the black. It is understandable since the poem is a kind of appeal toward the black and the explanation can be seen in the analysis.
Wear the Mask," which warns of "the mask that grins and lies," Dunbar spoke eloquently and individually to the complexity of his struggle to articulate an African American poetic voice to a white American audience.
The critics like Brackett, Strandness, Braxton, Revell, Andrews, Williams, Emmanuel and Howell mentioned that Dunbar is concerned about his black race in particular and American people in general at the end of 19th century. Particularly Howell mentioned that Dunbar was a talented poet that has aesthetic sense. By using the critics’ ideas the writer is able to find how human existence is defined in the condition when black people were treated unfairly by their society at that time.
As we see in through the comments before, there are some critics who speak about the mask in the poem although it is not the main focus of their study. But in the writer’s opinion, the mask is the integral part of the poem. This study tries to answer why the mask becomes so important and what the importance of the mask in the poem is.
B. Review of Related Theories
1. Theory on Understanding Poem
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sensations” around him. As a poet he has ability to “feel” and “see” the behavior of the people, their follies, sufferings, their mobility; to the thoughts, that human asks about themselves and their world” (1972: 21). So a poet is someone who can sense the conditions around him in society, he has ability to articulate the actual situation by arranging the verses to be a meaningful message toward the reader. He could evoke the reader’s emotion in reacting to the facts he gives in the poem. To understand this kind of ‘complexity” owned by a poet, and also his message, some comprehensive steps are absolutely needed.
According to Brooks and Warren in the book Understanding Poetry, there are some steps that should be considered in exploring a poem. The first by ourselves to the narrative poems, the second is paraphrasing by familiarizing ourselves to the descriptive poems, the third is by getting the important message of the poem through the metric, tone, imagery, theme; statement, idea, etc (1968: ix).
Sometimes the poet is different from the speaker in the poem. According to Laurence Perrine,” a cardinal error of beginning reader is to assume always that the speaker is the poet himself. A far safer course is to assume always that the speaker is someone other than the poet himself” (1967: 572). It is obvious that we should distinguish between the poet and the speaker in a poem. A poet is the person who writes the poem, and it is not always that the person who speaks in a poem is the poet. It might be possible that the poet is echoing the condition in a society. It can be the society who speaks, or a person in a society. It can be found properly if we pay attention more to the message and to whom the message is addressed.
The theories above are the guidelines in understanding the poem. On the other hand, this writing will focus on the mask, which personally the most important part of the poem. Mask is seen not just a covering part of the face but also it is seen as the medium to show the human existence. We also have to distinguish the poet and the speaker in the poem in order to avoid false interpretation. The more we adept to the theories, the easier we understand the poem and the easier we get the message in the poem.
2. Mask
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existence, moreover toward the authenticity of human existence. Therefore, it is quite reasonable for the writer to put some notation about mask in this part. Mask is known since the early history of Western civilization in noticing the person. Since the old human history that was represented by the Greek and the Rome, mask is used as identification of character, not as a deception or disguise. From the Plato’s era to the Shakespeare’s era, human life is considered as puppet show. In the theatre of life, people who engage in situation-appropriate behavior are playing their own ‘roles’ or wearing mask (Tseelon, 2001: 5).
The mask has represented two approaches to identity. The first approach says that mask represents the existence of an authentic self. This approach sees the mask – real or metaphoric-, used as covering in some situation and it is even deceiving by pretending to be the real self. The other approach states that every manifestation is authentic. Therefore the mask has revealed the multiplicity of our identity (Tseelon, 2001: 10).
expose the seams of crafted facades and the rules of narrative, the practices of ritual, the mechanics of the act, the stylised elements of the performance (Tseelon, 2001: 5-11). Efrat Tseelon quoted Edward Napier’s statement on masks as,
Testify to an awareness of the ambiguities of appearance and to a tendency toward paradox characteristics of transitional states. They provide a medium for exploring formal boundaries and a means of investigating the problems that appearances pose in the experience of change (2001: 2).
Furthermore, according to Tseelon, in relation to mask, we have to consider two other terms that have the same characteristics with mask; they are disguise and masquerade. Mask is defined as concealing in the sense of ‘protecting, or hiding from view’. On the other hand disguise is defined as concealing in the sense of ‘misrepresenting’ (assuming false elements), while masquerade is defined as ‘assuming false appearance (2001: 2).
3. Human Existence
As it is said in the introduction, there are some themes of existentialism found in the poem. They are the individual and the system, the nature and the significance of choice and the role of extreme experiences. The themes also become the central of the existentialists whose ideas are taken in this chapter. Kierkegaard is famous of his theme about the importance of individual against the system, Heidegger’s and Jaspers’ contribution in the theme the nature and the significance of choice.
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appears and exists by being, experiences himself as conscious subject who is active and in process. Non-being is seen as the dimension of human nothingness, which refers to human objectness, including the weakness and determinants of life (1987: 9).
Martin Heidegger used the German word sein in referring to being. Heidegger states that being cannot be grasped except by taking time into consideration. “Time needs to be explicated primordially as the horizon for the understanding of Being, and in terms of temporality as the Being of dasein, which understands Being” (1962: 39). Therefore, being or existence has a tight relation with temporality of future dimension. This temporality leads to the possibility of human existence to be authentic or non-authentic. Heidegger was strongly against the definition of existence that states that existence is something that precedes essence. He argued that existence is the possibility of to be or not to be authentic which will be implemented in the future (Abidin, 2000: 183). Another mode of sein is dasein. Dasein means being-there, which is also interpreted as human existence. Dasein’s preontological understanding of being embodied in everyday practices, opens a “clearing” in which entities can show up as, for example, tools, protons, numbers, and so on (Audi, 1999: 371).
as boundary situation (Grenz Situationen). The end of human life is death, the situation in which man cannot avoid. Toward the dread of death, Heidegger says the knowledge that reveals death as the end, ground, and boundary of life brings to human beings its proper freedom, transforms the alien absurdities of stubborn facts into an essential possibility of being itself. An authentic existence is the being that is conscious toward his death. The second concept is conscience. Conscience is the voice speaking in secrecy and silence. It is the call of the self to itself the call of the self to get out of the distraction of self-forgetfulness. The phenomenon of conscience challenges human being to escape from enslavement into freedom and by the same act to transform historical necessity into resolution. And the third concept is destiny. Destiny has relationship with time-historical time, death and birth; the present itself is raised out of forfeiture to an authentic present. Destiny is a pattern achieved only by the rare individual who in dread and silence has come face to face with his own nothingness and has shaped his life in the light, or the darkness, of that encounter (Grene, 1967: 460-461).
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more abstractly, presumably as the abstract reflection of, or the abstract prototype for, what being is concrete empirical being. Kierkegaard’s idea about being is much more abstract than the other. Kierkegaard states,
if being,…is understood as empirical being, truth is at once must be transformed into a desideratum, and everything must be understood in terms of becoming, for the empirical object is unfinished and the existing cognitive spirit is itself in process of becoming (Nauman Jr., 1972: 14).
For Kierkegaard, a man has abandoned a very invaluable thing by constituting himself in a system named society (he referred to the Established State Church). In a system or Kierkegaard noticed as ‘crowd’, a man is ridden by a ‘total forgetfulness’ and each individual in the ‘crowd’ tends to behave as a whole, leaving behind the value of an integrated person. He states, “the crowd, in fact, is composed of individuals; it must therefore be in every man’s power to become what he is, an individual. From becoming an individual no me, no me at all, is excluded, except he who excludes himself by becoming a crowd” (Hassan, 1973: 71).
There are three characteristics of Kierkegaard’s idea of the importance of being an individual against the system:
a. the rejection of any closed system of thought that attempts to explain the meaning of life and human existence by reference to some rationally comprehensible reality outside of man himself,
c. the freedom and responsibility of the individual human being who wills to do a particular thing in a world that there are no moral certainties (1967: 462).
Kierkegaard found three basic spheres of human life. They are: the first is esthetic life, that is, in the stage human’s thought is only focused outside of himself. Esthetic here does not mean simply as art but in this meaning, human is totally outside of his own self, he does not experience his own self, he does not think as a human but he think just to think. The second sphere is ethical life. In the stage, man focuses himself inside. He concentrated himself on the things about himself as a human being. The stage is contrasted to the first stage. The third stage is religious life, in which man is integrated with God, he gives himself totally and surrenders before God, and in the stage man experiences his authentic existence; man experiences his authentic and original being. Toward Kierkegaard’s thinking, James Collins, the author of A Critical Study of Existentialism, states, “but man is the one being that endowed with conscious freedom and hence with the possibilities for existing at various level of adequacy” (1952: 6).
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while transcendence is a mystery and it talks to human through signs, chiffers. And the signs, chiffers can be read by human through his existence (Hamersma, 1985: 9).
Jaspers is suspicious with the over-confidence in science and he stressed the irrational in man. He argued that philosophy begins where reason suffers shipwreck. Therefore, we must live philosophy by philosophizing it; we have to threat it as an activity of becoming, not static as a body of facts. Furthermore, to appreciate philosophy insights, we must arrive at them ourselves.
Meanwhile, Karl Jaspers, according to James Collins in his book, The Existentialist A Critical Study, stated that as fact we can find a man in two perspectives;
a. As Dasein (empirical being), man is put as object; man is just of contained ideas, thinking. Empirical being is the reality of the given or objective world,
b. Existence (Existenz). As Concrete Existence, man finds himself in a certain situation, and man can experience his concrete existence in society. The way man experiences the social situations can be different; he can give up and surrender and cannot prevent his authenticity by living in society without his identity, or he can live in society without loosing his identity. He can only do that by communicating with other existences (1952: 101).
the “being as freedom”, Jaspers stressed on the origin of being that means the origin of a self in existence (Dasein) and, but, not the origin of being as such (Nauman Jr., 1972: 14).
Freedom is central to human; and identifies with choices, awareness, and selfhood. To choose means to be free and a man’s freedom is his being. Basically a man is free, but his freedom constitutes his existence means that in practicing his freedom in everyday life, he has to be responsible as much as his rights to be a man. To know and use his freedom is the prime reason of human existence. This is the real being, the original one. On the other side, “being as status” means, being is acknowledged as a thing, and a man can do something with it and he can grasp it. Status means something that is predicated, given or gained. Therefore, a man can do something with it, for certain intention or purpose. Because it is given, predicated, this kind of being is not free anymore, it has been interfered by someone’s interest or briefly others under control it. Everywhere it is an objectively given being (Nauman Jr., 1972: 14).
D. Theoretical Framework
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Secondly, we are introduced with the theory of poetry. The significance of this theory is to understand the poem more closely. A poem usually conveys the ideas that the poet wants to share or what the speaker wants to speak out. In the process to find the ideas contains in the poem, the writer found that mask represents the ideas of human existence. The significance of the mask is to reveal the ideas about the human existence and also to lead us to the contribution of mask toward human existence particularly toward the existence of the speaker in the poem.
A. Object of the Study
The poem analyzed in this writing is the work of Paul Lawrence Dunbar. The title is “We Wear the Mask” and it can be found in some books and I took the poem from the book The American Identity, published in 1962 by D.C. Heath and Company, page 660. The poem firstly appeared in Dunbar’s poems collected in his volume of poetry entitled Lyrics of Lowly Life in 1896. The poem has three stanzas and each stanza contains various verses. The first stanza contains 5 lines; the second 4 and finally the third one has 6 lines.
The poem tells us about a group of people who wear the mask. The mask that they wear has concealed their true existence which is represented by cheeks and eyes. By wearing the mask, the speaker ‘smile(s) with torn and bleeding heart’ and the mouth is full of countless intricacy. Skipping to the second stanza, the speaker questions the involvement of the world (society) that is not unaware of their suffering; therefore the speaker keeps on wearing the mask. And in the last stanza, the speaker tells the God about his grief, about his basic weaknesses being men, while they do not have the guarantee that the situation will end, and on the other hand the world (society) still let them wear the mask.
Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” is a critique and appeal toward black people. The poem that was written in 1896 is talking about the speaker who is wearing the
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mask. The speaker is wearing the mask that is grinning and lying. The mask conceals their origin appearance that represented by cheeks and eyes. But the action of wearing the mask shows the guile of human beings. While they are wearing the mask, they cannot hide that they are suffering inside, suffering for wearing the mask. The poet mentioned the people as “over-wise” people as a critique toward their slow reaction against their anguish and he said that their ignorance was their basic weaknesses.
B. Approach of the Study
approach is the approach that is employed to find out what moral teaching or what philosophical issue probing in literature. The proponents of the approach tend to interpret literature in a context of philosophical thought of a period or group (Guerin, 1979: 29). Working in this very large field is very complicated and it needs and extra power and spirit. To make it quite easy to tackle the writer uses several existentialism theories such Kierkegaard’s, Heidegger’s, and Jaspers’.
C. Method of the Study
In analyzing the work, the writer uses library research method, in which the main sources of the work are collected from library. The primary source is the poem of Paul Lawrence Dunbar entitled “We Wear the Mask”. After reading the poem again and again, the writer found the poem relates to the existentialism idea, therefore the books on existentialism are used in order to understand the message in the poem. According to Horton and Edwards existentialism is a fully responsible philosophy whose chief intent is to restore to the human individual the freedom – if he dare to pay the price for it – to determine the value of his own life (1952: 459). After many considerations about the ideas and the theories on existentialism, the writer decides to use Karl Jaspers’, Soren Kierkegaard’s, and Martin Heidegger’s ideas on human existence. They are also famous existentialist thinkers, and their ideas are indisputable until now.
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the poem; it is the human existence idea. Existentialism is one of the ways to analyze human existence; therefore the writer looked for and read some books on existentialism.
A. The Idea of Human Existence in the Poem
1. The Paraphrase of the Poem “We Wear the Mask”
According to Perrine, paraphrasing a poem is the lowest test of our understanding of certain poem. In his opinion, “it should contain as far as possible all the ideas in the poem in such a way as to make them clear to puzzled reader (1967: 577). Although the paraphrase is the standard test in understanding a poem it should state the ideas as comprehensible as possible so the readers do not get confused of it.
Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” consists of 3 stanzas with various lines. The first contains five lines, the second has four and the last one has six lines. The following is the paraphrase of the poem:
We wear the mask; the mask is grinning and lying. The mask is hiding our cheeks and also shading our eyes. We must pay the debt of wearing the mask to the cunning of human being. We smile, but on the other hand, our heart is torn and bleeding and our mouth contains countless intricacies. But we have to question why the world should be over-wise in dealing with all our grieves and sorrows we have experienced. No, let them only can see us while we wear the mask. We smile and on the other hand, we cry and the voices of our suffered souls arise to You Great Christ. We also sing and on the other hand, we still have some evil weaknesses in facing this
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life everyday, and it is still too far away to know when the situation will end. But let the world dream otherwise, We Wear the Mask.
2. Interpretation of the Poem Related to the Idea of Human Existence
Personally, the theme of human existence lies in the verse “we wear the mask” and the verse is seen as the main point of the poem particularly it lays in the word mask. The repetition of the verse in every stanza emphasizes its meaning.
The poem opens up with a repetition of the title, “We Wear the Mask…” The word “we” implies that the speaker in the poem is not a single person or more than one person. The speaker voices social injustice faced by the black American at the time. Talking about the black American at the time, the mass issue was the abolition of the injustice treatment (slavery) after the end of the civil war in the 1865. The slaves, who were dominantly black, voiced their rights to be free, free from the social chains created by the inequality between the white and the black. In the writer’s opinion, the poem is an appeal either for the black people in particular or for the society in general in order to respect the rights of the black.
character, emotions, etc. So in literal meaning, mask is a cover and it can be a manner or and expression. Mask provides ambiguities because of its action of camouflaging the character behind it. It also speaks about the paradox of appearances due to its characteristics to invite the curiosity from the audiences in order to know what idea lies behind the mask.
As stated before, the mask is used to define someone’s character or identity. Someone’s identity is what and how the person is known and recognized by others. In the poem, it is clearly stated that the mask is hiding cheeks and eyes. Line 2 reads “It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes”. Cheeks and eyes are parts of face, and someone is simply recognized by their faces. Face is the first medium in which a man is acknowledged his characteristics besides other media such as attitude, behavior, trait, and so on. The decision of choosing cheeks and eyes is meaningful because of the characteristics of cheek and eye. Cheek is featured to show happiness and meanwhile tear shows sorrow, those situation are unavoidable in human life. So, mask is the medium that hides and disguises someone’s identity because the true expression of human is disguised. Hiding and disguising identity means to limit the existence of human being.
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unacceptable, and other negative things. Human guile is the other characterization of human being that features //“smile with torn and bleeding heart and mouth with myriad subtleties”//.
On the other hand, line 4 says, //“with torn and bleeding heart we smile”// is a contradiction fact to the human’s true existence. Smile is one of the expressions of happiness, pleasure or joy. When someone is happy and feels pleasure, he usually smiles to show his inner feeling if his heart is joyful. But a man cannot smile if he feels not so good inside or when his heart is in sorrow, except it is an irony for himself. It is an irony because smile and sorrow are very contradictive. Smile refers to good mood or feeling and sorrow refers to bad feeling. What the speaker is trying to say here is he does not experience his life normally anymore. There are some incidents and occasions when he has to pretend in order to survive themselves, not just toward other people around him but also toward himself. In this condition he experiences inauthentic existence rather than authentic one because he is forced to do so.
In the second stanza, Dunbar presents the verse 6 and 7 that say //‘why should the world be over-wise// in counting all our tears and sighs//. The word wise means prudent, clever. But there is no one over-wise in the world, there is only very wise, very clever and very prudent. So, the word over-wise refers to the bad effect of being wise. In the end of this stanza, Dunbar uses the verse “we wear the mask” to emphasize the importance of the verse. This stanza is interpreted as the rise of the speaker’s awareness of their existence. The speaker seems to question the society but he does not do actually. He is aware of the freedom of his existence but does not enable to come out of the situation. The next stanza proves it, “nay, let them only see us, while// we wear the mask//. The stanza means the speaker does not have the power to avoid the situation. The speaker has the freedom but it is still buried in the daily life activity, in which he does not has the courage to show his identity as a black man who has the same and equal rights as others.
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multiplicity of identity (Tseelon, 2001: 4). So, the identity reveals in the poem can also be the real self and the multiplicity of identity.
In the third stanza, Dunbar once again uses the verse “we wear the mask”. The purpose is to underline the meaning of wearing the mask. The irony as we have seen in the first stanza lines fourth and fifth recurs in this stanza. Lines 10 and 11 say “we smile, but, O great Christ, our cries to thee from tortured souls arise”, shows the irony of what is clearly seen in our mere eyes and what happens inside/inner feeling. As seen in the stanza, there are some facts about the speaker in the poem. He smiles, but the smile does not genuine or real because his soul is hurt. He also sings but he has the clay that is vile beneath his feet, which means that they still have some critical weaknesses in life. Line 14, // but the world dream otherwise// means the day of freedom is still in dream if the speaker continues wearing the mask, if he does not show himself as he is but hiding behind the comfort of the mask. All these facts are accumulated in a very meaningful verse ‘we wear the mask’.
From the interpretation of the poem above, it is concluded that mask plays an important role in the poem. Mask has revealed the multiplicity of identity of the speaker in the poem. The multiplicity of identity leads to the creation of new image, the existence of wearing mask.
B. The Significance of the Mask toward Human Existence in the Poem
sociale is proved by his/her communication with other people. Communicating with other people means that he/she builds relationship with them, either collective or personal. The way a man builds communication with other people, or the way a man exists in the world or society is called in der Welt sein or existence (Drijarkara, 1981: 9). The way man exists in the world or society has determined his/her existence whether authentic or inauthentic. And according to Heidegger, as seen in Chapter II page 15, the determination to be or not to be authentic lies on the choice of human being (Abidin, 2000: 157). In every day life man always faces social situation. And in the social situation like this man is challenged to prove his/her existence whether it is authentic or inauthentic.
The poem that was written in 1896 presents a social situation that the speaker has to face as ens sociale. In the poem, the social situation emerges when the speaker is facing some problems when he has to decide the meaning of his existences (authentic or inauthentic) and in that moment he chooses to wear the mask. The reason why he is wearing the mask is not really clearly stated in the poem. But if we look back to the condition in the end of the eighteenth century in which the injustice treatment (slavery) in America was just been abolished, the reason probably interconnected with the racial injustice experienced by the black. So, the context of the poem is the situation after the abolition of the slavery in the U.S.
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verse of the first stanza, it is stated that the speaker wears the mask that is grinning and lying. The statement produces irony for the reader because what is really grinning and lying, is it the mask or the persona behind the mask, or to whom the mask is grinning and lying, is it to the reader or to the wearers?
poem experiences something unfair in his life and wearing mask is one of the ways taken to express his refusal to the condition. Then the mask in the poem is seen as the protest against the unfair treatment experienced by the speaker in the poem. As we know the poem was written after the abolition of the injustice treatment, the era in which the black people and their families were not fully experienced their rights through many injustice actions they felt. Meanwhile the mask is also seen as the medium of liberation. In this point, the mask is seen as the tool to free a person from a certain situation that bound him. In the poem, the mask frees the speaker from the given status. The given status made him could not fully experience their freedom. Wearing mask is believed as the way he could liberate himself from the given status that bound him for many years but actually it traps him in inauthenticity of his existence. The other function of the mask is as the tool of de-construction. As a tool of deconstruction, a mask is questioning many established condition in the society / status quo. As we see in the poem, second stanza lines 1,2 and 3 read //why should the world be over-wise// in counting all our tears and sighs// we wear the mask//, are seen as the representation of the speaker’s inability to come out of his ‘hidden’ freedom. It is said as ‘hidden’ freedom because the speaker is aware that he wears the mask, which means he has the freedom (freedom identifies in choices, awareness, and selfhood). So these lines are interpreted as the society is so dominant over the speaker because he still wears the mask.
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obvious that the lines contain negative ideas; it is about the cunning of human being. In the writer’s opinion the speaker realizes if he has played bad roles by making many subtleties. He is conscious if what he has done is not true but he is unable to abandon it. The diction of the words guile and subtleties contains the irony of the words. The word guile contains both the positive and negative ideas. The positive idea contained in the word is cleverness of human being, meaning that a human being can employ the surplus point of himself of having rational and emotional diligence. But the negative idea of the word lies on how a man acts very cunning upon other people.
is prostitute, and then she becomes a proper person in the other stage when she is mother to the children. The people wear the mask in a certain stage of human life, the stage that they have to face in seek for the authentic existence.
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wearing the mask. In this point we acknowledge that the mask is the irony to the wearers.
This verse also represents the voice from the wearer’s heart, or conscience. Conscience is the voice or call from the heart that appears if we face a difficult situation in which we need a solution. According to Heidegger, conscience is a part of authentic existence; it is the voice speaking in silence and secrecy, the call of itself to itself. Human being has been distracted by the forgetfulness of being (Seinvegessenheit), the term that Heidegger used in referring to inauthenticity, the condition when man has left the values of being a man who is fully responsible for himself in the world. The conscience has returned of what is called authenticity, a condition when man realizes his/her existence. Conscience is the concept developed in order to single out the authentic being (existence). The purpose of articulating the conscience in the poem is in order to evoke the unconscious existence in the speaker’ own self. In the writer’s opinion, the speaker has forgotten their real existence and they are trapped in the given existence by wearing the mask.
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lead to the human guile, provide the unauthentic existence. The lines 8 and 9 of the second stanza, //Nay, let them only see us while// we wear the mask// is the fact that the speaker has one characteristic, wearing the mask. In this point, we see his inability to be an independent individual as what Kierkegaard says.
mask. In the first part of this chapter, we have been introduced to the speaker of the poem, which is identified by the word ‘we’. ‘We’ in the poem is the group of the person who wear the mask. Grouping in a mass situation for Kierkegaard signifies their inability to be ‘the individual’. This kind of collectivity reduces the self-determination in order to make a decision. The speaker or the mask wearer is the people who loose his identities in ‘the crowd’. ‘The crowd’ consists of different individuals who are uniformed in a characteristic, wear the mask. The individuals loose their own existence and by uniting in a group, they build a new trait of existence that is very different from their own. Lines 8 and 9 of the second stanza proves it, //nay, let them only see us while // we wear the mask//. Why then the speaker says, nay, let them only see us while we wear the mask. Why we, us not I, me? The answer is because by becoming ‘we, us’, the individual’s values such as freedom and responsibility are left behind.
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the attempt to address the authentic self. Those characteristics have restricted the manifestation of existence. The existentialist philosopher such as Karl Jaspers believes that existence is the active choice in liberty. Therefore the mask has restricted the freedom of existence.
The existentialists such as Kierkegaard, Jaspers, and Heidegger voiced the protest of Dostoevsky’s (Russian writer) ‘underground man’, the human individual who has been marginalized, isolated and impersonalized by the society. If we pay attention to the second stanza, the speaker says something about the world. The world here is not in the straight meaning, but it has to be understood as the society. The society in the poem is said not to pay much attention toward the speaker, it is proved in lines 6 and 7 //‘why should the world be over-wise// in counting all our tears and sighs’//. The lines seem to question the society but actually it emphasizes on the speaker himself to abandon all the odds to show his true existence, the existence in freedom. How the speaker himself shows his free existence is the purpose of the lines. By wearing the mask, the speaker has introduced their identity (existence).
the essential part of it. On the other hand, Jaspers’ Being as Status is similar to that person who wears the mask as the medium to define their existence. The mask here is seen as the status because of its characteristics that have certain purposes by wearing it. Meanwhile, status means something that is given, and therefore it is under influences of the giver moreover if the giver has certain purpose or tendencies by giving the status. Because the giver has certain purposes or tendencies, this being (existence) is no more free. So, the speaker in the poem is categorized as ‘being as status’ because he experiences his existence not genuinely, freely and independently. The lines 10-13 of the third stanza prove it.
As stated before, we can say that the background of the poem is associated with injustice treatment. Injustice treatment is the social situation at the time. Injustice treatment has the characteristics such as human exploitation, human subordination, and also dehumanization. These kinds of characterization are the enemy of the authentic existence. We can imagine that those who live in injustice treatment experience the limitation in stating their existence because they are treated like a thing, possession and object. In the writer’s opinion, whether we realize or not, injustice treatment has brought the existence of human into this zero point in which man cannot able to realize their existence because certain people have been treated as things or objects. Toward this very frightened point, Dunbar wants to remind his people to be aware of their existence as free people.
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the decisions a man makes (see Chapter II page 24). The decision here relates to the choice to be or not to be authentic. The action is understandable because they surrender to social situation in which they cannot bear to develop their existence. In the world man has the duty to develop himself because it is the characteristic of his personality (1981: 79). Therefore, the decision made by the speaker in the poem signifies the integrity of human being. As seen in the poem, the speaker fails to develop their existences, he is stuck in the attempt to find out the true existences by wearing mask, by turning into something new but lead him into the lowest level of his life; he fails to define his existence.
In the poem, we have acknowledged that the speaker is wearing the mask. The characteristics of the mask which is disguising have restricted the real or origin existence of the wearer. The existence is not free. This point is of course really contradictive with the characteristics of existence that features freedom. What is meant by freedom here is not absolute freedom, because absolute freedom tends to be anarchy. Probably, the appropriate world to replace freedom is liberty. It is said before that every man is existence and man in almost of his life time is seeking for authentic existence. As existence, in fact the speaker in the poem should be free, but every people behind the mask have chosen in contrary. In spite of letting his existence free, he throws it into a situation where he gives up and surrenders his existence; he looses the authenticity of his existence.
without pride the life of the men is meaningless. According to Karl Jaspers human dignity is in danger, and to safe it man has to live in his freedom, and to obtain the freedom, man needs to trust himself (1985: ix-x). For certain people, the one that man seeks for most of his life are self-dignity. Self-dignity is about the human pride, but it is not about self-centered. By obtaining his self-dignity, man finds that he has the ability to be an integral existence. Integral existence means that he does not need any media to show up his existence, he does not need to wear the mask, and it means that he is authentic. The speaker in the poem has endangered his existence by surrendering to the existence of mask. For him, wearing the mask is the way he can express and experience existence but then Dunbar tried to awake them up from their comfort status and reminded them to seek for their authentic existence.
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character; it is real and genuine since the character does not need any media to confirm.
The verse 14 of the third stanza, ‘but let the world dream otherwise’ signifies the two destinies of the speaker, that is to sleep and sleep until death comes or he has to wake up and keeps on living as a free man. In Heidegger’s opinion, destiny is another aspect of human being. He defines destiny as a pattern achieved only by the rare individual who in dread and silence has come face to face with his own nothingness and shaped his life in the light, or the darkness, of the encounter (1967: 461). The fact of a man is he has been thrown away in the world, and then he employs the choice and decision to be a free man that affords him to be an authentic existence. But not everyone has destiny. The men who have chosen to be authentic are the men who have destiny. The speaker in the poem is the person who has chosen not to be authentic by his own choice namely the decision to wear the mask.
his conscience. The fourth verse of the third stanza, ‘…and long the mile’ implies the possibility of continuing experience faced by the speaker if he cannot able to free himself from the injustice treatment. According to Dunbar, the black people must have the power to get away from the stigmatic status of injustice treatment, unless they have to face something that they do not want to. Stigmatic status like that can make them not fully awake and if they do they are not able to build a new destiny.
C. The Values of the Ideas of Human Existence
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been outlawed since the issuing of the 13th amendments, but the black could not able to build their own existence of free person but they hid behind the comfort of the abolition of the slavery. They were comfort because their status as free men had been accepted worldwide but they had to show that they were really free in every practical aspect of life not just the confession. The white was still dominant in almost aspect of life and had pushed aside the black. Therefore the black must ‘equalize’ their rights.
made Dunbar aware of his existence as black, who actually did not experience injustice treatment himself but face some racial injustice treatments, decided to evoke the awareness of being a free person among his black race and therefore they had to be against the unfair treatment in order to obtain their authentic existence. Meanwhile, the mask is also addressed to the people nowadays. In facing some social situations in everyday life, Dunbar suggests us not to surrender and give up to the situation by wearing the mask that disguises our true existence. Although the decision depends on our considerations but surrendering and giving up to the social situations can lead us to the inauthentic existence, the one that should not happen if we manage to survive and can protect our true existence. The authentic existence can be obtained only by communicating with other existences in the society. In communicating with other existences in the society, an existence must build an inter-subject relationship. The communication pattern is existential communication in which each person must be treated as integrated existence. As subject the person has the integrity as authentic existence.
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Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” is a poem of minority voice against the supremacy of the society (white). Written in 1896 or exactly three decades after the abolition of injustice treatment in the U.S., the poem still voices the inequality experienced by the black. Beside as the voice of the minority (black), the poem is seen as an appeal toward the society, an invitation to recall and the anguish experience of the black people, those who had been pushed aside for many years although after the abolition of the injustice treatment, the great victory over the racial injustice in the U.S.
The speaker in the poem is the person who wears the mask. He wears the mask that has changed his identity, to be grinning and lying. It is also hiding his cheeks and eyes, the first media to acknowledge the man’s identity. By wearing the mask, the speaker has turned into cunning man. The society where he lives is so dominant because he still wears the mask because he wants to be recognized in mask. He tries to live normally in his smile and sing but the expressions cannot represent his felling deep in the heart. He does not have any idea when these kinds of experiences end but one thing he knows that it ends if he does not wear the mask.
The focus of the analysis lies in the speaker’s choice to wear the mask. The mask becomes the important medium in the poem seen from existentialism point of view. As seen in the analysis, mask have two meanings; as the tool of self-definition
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and the tool of deconstruction. As the tool of self-definition, the mask is the medium to redefine the existence of human being. Meanwhile as the tool of deconstruct, the mask try to ‘attack’ the hegemony of certain people or organization and also to plea against the status quo. After seeing the meanings of the mask we can see the role the mask in determining the existence of a man. As we have acknowledged, early in the first part of the poem the speaker has chosen to wear the mask. Choosing to wear the mask is the important phase of how he experiences their life in the future stage. By choosing to wear the mask that grins and lies, the speaker has decided to survive behind the mask, the decision that is proved wrong because he turns to be cunning and he is not experiencing his life normally. He does not live in freedom because when he is in happiness, he experiences something very wretched and miserable deep in his heart, he is chased by the feeling. When he lives in freedom no longer, he becomes inauthentic being. And according to the existentialists, inauthentic being cannot fully develop his/her existence because he/she is no t free anymore.
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APPENDIX
(Paul Lawrence Dunbar, 1896) We Wear the Mask
We wear the mask that grins and lies, 1
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,- 2
This debt we pay to human guile; 3
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, 4
And mouth with myriad subtlety 5
Why should the world be over-wise, 6
In counting all our tears and sighs, 7
Nay let them only see us, while 8
We wear the mask 9
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries 10
To thee from tortured souls arise 11
We sing but o the clay is vile 12
Beneath our feet, and long the mile, 13
But the world dream otherwise, 14
